Development of a live imaging system using radioactive tracers to study the dynamics of mineral elements in living plants

Abstract

We have developed a system that can quantitatively analyze the dynamics of mineral elements in living plants by visualizing radioactive tracers moving within the plant. This system can visualize various types of radioactive tracers and track the dynamics of a wide variety of elements. Two types of systems have been developed according to the field of view. The macro-imaging system has a field of view of 10 x 20 cm with a resolution in the order of millimeters, whereas the microscopic-imaging system has a field of view of 600 x 600 µm with 100 µm resolution. Since these two systems use living plants for analysis, it is possible to change the plant growth environment during imaging and analyze plant responses to environmental changes. The visualization by this system is expected to be applied not only in the field of plant nutrition but also to various fields in bioscience such as plant morphology.