Molecular imaging for plant physiology (4): development of Compton camera for multi-tracer imaging of dynamics of various substances in intact plants

Abstract

We have been developing a prototype Compton camera for multi-elements imaging in intact plant bodies. The Compton camera consists of Si and CdTe semiconductor imaging devices, which have high energy and position resolution. The feasibility of this camera for gamma-ray emission imaging with radioactive multi-nuclide tracer was examined in this study. The distributions of the three sample tracers were successfully visualized separately for each nuclide simultaneously. The presented imaging method will yield plant molecular imaging, which visualizes dynamics of various physiological substances in the higher plants, non-invasively and quantitatively.