Development of a Robot-Based Platform Applied to Simultaneous Root Growth Profiling of Seedlings Growing in a Petri Dish

摘要

A newly developed platform is described which allows automatic detection of root growth characteristics for several seedlings simultaneously with high spatial and temporal resolution. A Petri dish containing young seedlings of Arabidopsis thaliana planted in a row is mounted on a vertical sample stage. This computer controlled two dimensional positioning unit enables screening of the entire Petri dish under the binocular microscope with a resolution of 5.6 × 5.8μm per pixel. Based on the obtained video images the growth pattern of individual roots is automatically calculated and graphed by our newly developed software package. Proof of the developed system is provided by application to Arabidopsis seedlings (wild type (col0) and starch mutants (sex1 and pgm)). The results show decrease of growth rate during dark period in case of sex1 and pgm mutants, ending to no growth, while the wild type col0 seedlings continue growing almost the same as during light period.