Li Ji, Mintgen Michael A C, D'Haeyer Sam, Helfer Anne, Nelissen Hilde, Inzé Dirk, Dhondt Stijn
Department of Plant Biotechnology and Bioinformatics Ghent University Ghent Belgium.
Center for Plant Systems Biology VIB Ghent Belgium.
Plant Environ Interact. 2023 Feb 9;4(2):55-69. doi: 10.1002/pei3.10098. eCollection 2023 Apr.
As agricultural production is reaching its limits regarding outputs and land use, the need to further improve crop yield is greater than ever. The limited translatability from in vitro lab results into more natural growth conditions in soil remains problematic. Although considerable progress has been made in developing soil-growth assays to tackle this bottleneck, the majority of these assays use pots or whole trays, making them not only space- and resource-intensive, but also hampering the individual treatment of plants. Therefore, we developed a flexible and compact screening system named PhenoWell® in which individual seedlings are grown in wells filled with soil allowing single-plant treatments. The system makes use of an automated image-analysis pipeline that extracts multiple growth parameters from individual seedlings over time, including projected rosette area, relative growth rate, compactness, and stockiness. Macronutrient, hormone, salt, osmotic, and drought stress treatments were tested in the PhenoWell® system. The system is also optimized for maize with results that are consistent with Arabidopsis while different in amplitude. We conclude that the PhenoWell® system enables a high-throughput, precise, and uniform application of a small amount of solution to individually soil-grown plants, which increases the replicability and reduces variability and compound usage.
由于农业生产在产量和土地利用方面已接近极限，进一步提高作物产量的需求比以往任何时候都更为迫切。将体外实验室结果转化为土壤中更自然生长条件的可转化性有限，这仍然是个问题。尽管在开发土壤生长试验以解决这一瓶颈方面已取得了相当大的进展，但这些试验大多使用花盆或整个托盘，这不仅使其占用空间和资源密集，还妨碍了对植物的单独处理。因此，我们开发了一种灵活紧凑的筛选系统，名为PhenoWell®，其中单个幼苗在装满土壤的孔中生长，允许对单株植物进行处理。该系统利用自动化图像分析流程，随着时间的推移从单个幼苗中提取多个生长参数，包括莲座叶投影面积、相对生长速率、紧密度和粗壮度。在PhenoWell®系统中测试了大量元素、激素、盐、渗透和干旱胁迫处理。该系统也针对玉米进行了优化，其结果与拟南芥一致，但幅度不同。我们得出结论，PhenoWell®系统能够对单独种植在土壤中的植物高通量、精确且均匀地施用少量溶液，这提高了可重复性，降低了变异性并减少了化合物用量。
