Abstract
Technical advances in imaging procedures generated a variety of information on a large-scale basis in the field of plant organelle research. These large data sets are deposited in databases, and used in further analyses. Among a variety of public databases, image databases exhibit an ability to display organelle dynamics, because organelle dynamics information, which can be interpreted by various parameters including size, number and behavior, is visually exhibited in a single representation. Through image databases, users can grasp organelle dynamics easily compared to text-based description. As image and movie data contain valuable and significant information such as size, length and velocity, image databases contribute to systems biology of plant organelles by combination with other databases that were generated using several 'omics' approaches. In this presentation, we would like to review the image databases, such as our database, PODB2, which are useful for plant organelle research. Moreover, we would like to discuss their potential as image-based tools for systems biology, and as educational aids that accelerate the interest of younger generations in plant biology.
