The way we study plant cells is expanding – literally – thanks for new research Kevin CoxAn assistant professor of biology in Arts and Science at the University of Washington at St. Louis and an assistant member of Donald Danforth Plant Science Center. In a new study published in Plant journalCox and his team describe how they have exposed (expansion microscopy in the plant protoplast system), a technique that brings expansion microscopy to plants.
Traditional imaging methods often come up with trade. “We have low-end microscope, which are user-friendly, but do not provide too much depth and resolution,” Cocx explained. “And then high-end microscope, where you have really good resolution and data, but it has a lot to process, and they are more expensive.”
This is the place where the expansion microscopy (EXM) comes. Instead of relying on the lens, the exm increases biological tissues by embedding physically biological tissues into a hydrogel, a water-absorbed polymer who can expand without losing its size-material used in products such as bury diapers. As hydrogel is swollen, they perform cellular structures, making small details easier to view under a standard microscope. Therefore, instead of a zoom-in picture where individual elements can be blurred or deformed, the physical size of the cells increases, like a sponge in water. Better yet, it is low cost and accessible.
While the EXM has been widely used in animal research, it has been challenging to apply it to plants. Plant cells have rigid cell walls made of cellulose, which prevent uniform expansion.
Cox and his team removed their walls using protoplasts – plant cells – allowing them to successfully adapt the XM for plant research. The result is exposed, a method that helps to provide high-resolution, detailed view of plant cells.
With exposed, researchers will now be able to imagine the cell structures of a plant with maximum resolution, allowing them to study the exact location of protein, RNA and other biomolecule. This is important for cox, whose work focuses on cellular communication and reaction. “This gives us a better understanding of where these genes and proteins are, how they are working and how they can play a role in cellular response,” he said.
But exposure is just a part of cellular imaging and data collection. Cox asked the question, “What else can we do with it to make it more like a toolkit?” When exposes were used in combination with techniques such as hybridization chain reaction, which was usually known as HCR, and immunoflorescence, COX and their team found that they were able to see both protein and RNA in even more detail.
Although current is currently used to study individual cells, cox also increases a large future for expansion microscopy in cox plants. “We are trying to understand the spatial information at a cellular level and then, collectively, on a large scale,” Cocks explained. This means that using exposes to see the organs, leaves, roots and finally, the entire plants, where researchers will be able to check how these cells are communicating with each other.
The center of the research of Cox is a baseless but powerful model organism: Duckved. This small, rapidly growing aquatic plant is potentially ideal to study cellular communication and gene expression. Cox said, “Because Dakved is very small, it gives us a model to understand what every cell is doing in a certain moment.” This is especially useful when Study how plant cells respond to stressSuch as infection or environmental changes.
Final goal? Applying this knowledge to crops. Researchers can develop more flexible, high-ups and rapid growing crops, understanding how plant cells talk to each other and protect against dangers.
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