Abstract
The Positron Emitting Tracer Imaging System (PETIS) and caron-11-labeled carbon dioxide (11CO2) can image carbon movement during photoassimilation and export in a plant leaf, and 11C kinetics make it possible to estimate physiological function parameters in those processes. With an exposure 11CO2 -gas to a leaf, PETIS experiments were performed under four light conditions on a single leaf. In order to estimate the rate constants of photoassimilation parameters, time activity curves of 11CO2 gas input and leaf response were fitted to an appropriate compartmental tracer kinetic model, which applies influx and efflux for photoassimilation and photosynthate export rate constants respectively. These results are reasonable response against light environment and important to discuss photosynthesis in plant physiology and agriculture. Kinetic parameters are fitted enough with pixel-by-pixel analysis, so that our method suggest that a parametric imaging of photosynthesis, which is indicative of a plant molecular imaging.
