Dehydration of plant cells shoves nuclei rotation allowing for 3D phase-contrast tomography

Abstract

Abstract Single-cell phase-contrast tomography promises to become decisive for studying 3D intracellular structures in biology. It involves probing cells with light at wide angles, which unfortunately requires complex systems. Here we show an intriguing concept based on an inherent natural process for plants biology, i.e., dehydration, allowing us to easily obtain 3D-tomography of onion-epidermal cells’ nuclei. In fact, the loss of water reduces the turgor pressure and we recognize it induces significant rotation of cells’ nuclei. Thanks to the holographic focusing flexibility and an ad-hoc angles’ tracking algorithm, we combine different phase-contrast views of the nuclei to retrieve their 3D refractive index distribution. Nucleolus identification capability and a strategy for measuring morphology, dry mass, biovolume, and refractive index statistics are reported and discussed. This new concept could revolutionize the investigation in plant biology by enabling dynamic 3D quantitative and label-free analysis at sub-nuclear level using a conventional holographic setup.

Plant phenotyping relevance

植物細胞の脱水による核回転と位相差トモグラフィーを利用し、核の3D形態・乾燥質量・体積・屈折率を定量する新規手法を開発しており、植物フェノタイピング手法が研究の中心である。

Code and data availability

The supplied blocks describe holographic phase-contrast tomography of onion epidermal cell nuclei and reference supplementary movies and methods, but contain no public phenotype dataset, image/sensor data deposit, author analysis code, or trained model with an explicit availability statement or URL. The only URL in the

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