Non-invasive imaging and analyses of transport of nitrogen nutrition in intact plants using a positron-emitting tracer imaging system (PETIS)

Fujimaki, Shu; Ishii, Satomi; Ishioka, Noriko

Nitrogen assimilation in plants, p.119 - 132, 2010/07

The positron-emitting tracer imaging system (PETIS) is one of the most advanced imaging tools for plant nutrition and has been employed in many studies over the last decade. There are several reports on nitrogen assimilation studies using PETIS and N, a positron-emitting radioisotope. Symbiotic nitrogen fixation in intact nodulated soybean plants was visualized and quantified with N-labeled N gaseous tracer. Ammonium uptake and assimilation in a rice plant under various physiological treatments was analyzed using NH tracer. The proportion of interception of nitrogen nutrition by a root parasitic plant Orobanche sp. from a host red clover plant was estimated using NO tracer. This non-invasive imaging method provides not only qualitative observation of nutritional transport in living plants but also quantitative analysis of nutritional functions, such as absorption, xylem and phloem transport, and accumulation.