Light sheet microscopy utilized by plant researchers at the Max Planck Institute
Axel Mithoefer and Veit Grabe looking at the new images of infected Arabidopsis roots generated with a ZEISS light sheet microscope.
Dr. Axel Mithöfer and his team at the Max Planck Institute together with colleagues from the University of Jena recently published findings using plant microscopy that show key differences in how root-interacting beneficial and pathogenic fungi utilize auxin – a phytohormone involved in root growth and development – and its target genes to manipulate the performance of their hosts for their own needs. These data provide important contributions in understanding how these symbiotic interactions between plant and fungi initiate.
Some of the data used in this paper include extended time lapse observations of fungus and plant root interactions in vivo using ZEISS light sheet microscopy.
Visualization of auxin distribution (indicated in red) in a growing Arabidopsis root expressing an auxin responsive reporter system.
Dr. Mithöfer was able to share some of his experience working with microscopy for plant imaging as well as his thoughts on this article and his future work.
Have you done much work imaging plants with light sheet microscopy? Or was this the first time you’ve utilized this technique in your research?
That was the first study where we used the light sheet microscope, ZEISS Lightsheet Z.1. But we are motivated and convinced by the results we received, we now use light sheet microscopy in other projects as well.