Department of Animal and Plant Sciences at University of Sheffield uses real-time digital auto-radiography Micro Imager to investigate biochemical processes in leaves and microtome sections of plants
Sheffield's imager is believed to be the first in the UK working exclusively on plant material.
A faster and more reliable alternative to film and phosphor methods, it is demonstrating many of the advantages that are already benefiting drug metabolism studies of animal tissue in the pharmaceutical industry.
The equipment was supplied by LabLogic Systems, which has also contributed to the funding of a PhD student in partnership with the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council BBSRC.
The department is investigating the uptake of radio-labelled metabolites by the many distinct cell types within plant tissue, which often occur in layers or clusters less than 50 microns wide.
Until now such work has required that the cells be isolated by dissection, which is often very difficult in practice.
The high resolution of the Micro Imager - 20um for 14C, 15um for tritium - makes this physical method unnecessary, and its dual labelling capacity allows two isotopes in the same sample to be imaged simultaneously.
At the moment work is concentrated on the pea, because of its value as a food product, and on the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana.
