PlantSize Offers an Affordable, Non-destructive Method to Measure Plant Size and Color in Vitro

作者：Dóra Faragó, László Sass, Ildikó Valkai, Norbert Andrási, László Szabados · 发表于：Frontiers in Plant Science · 年份：2018 · DOI：10.3389/fpls.2018.00219 · 被引用次数：66 · 研究领域：Leaf Properties and Growth Measurement、Plant Gene Expression Analysis、Remote Sensing in Agriculture

Plant size, shape and color are important parameters of plants, which have traditionally been measured by destructive and time-consuming methods. Non-destructive image analysis is an increasingly popular technology to characterize plant development in time. High throughput automatic phenotyping platforms can simultaneously analyze multiple morphological and physiological parameters of hundreds or thousands of plants. Such platforms are however expensive and are not affordable for many laboratories. Moreover, determination of basic parameters is sufficient for most studies. Here we describe a non-invasive method, which simultaneously measures basic morphological and physiological parameters of in vitro cultured plants. Changes of plant size, shape and color is monitored by repeated photography with a commercial digital camera using neutral white background. Images are analyzed with the MatLab-based computer application PlantSize, which simultaneously calculates several parameters including rosette size, convex area, convex ratio, chlorophyll and anthocyanin contents of all plants identified on the image. Numerical data are exported in MS Excel-compatible format. Subsequent data processing provides information on growth rates, chlorophyll and anthocyanin contents. Proof-of-concept validation of the imaging technology was demonstrated by revealing small but significant differences between wild type and transgenic Arabidopsis plants overexpressing the HSFA4A transcription factor ...