MRI: Rapid Image Acquisition of Dynamic Arabidopsis Cells and for High-Throughput Genetic Screens

在Alan M. Jones博士的监督下，北卡罗来纳大学教堂山分校（UNC）获得了一笔赠款，题为“动态拟南芥细胞的快速图像采集和高通量遗传筛选”，用于获取和维护专用显微镜。拟南芥基因组测序在植物科学方面取得的巨大进展将研究推向了下一个更高的研究水平，在那里，研究细胞蛋白质如何以及何时在高空间分辨率下随时间相互作用已成为新的标准。对精密成像仪器的需求和需求都有所增加。然而，植物细胞中荧光标记蛋白的成像面临着几个可克服的挑战。其一是植物细胞的动态特性，由于细胞质流动（快速的细胞运动）发生的速度大于标准共聚焦显微镜（这是一种专门的显微镜，使人们能够在各种活细胞中看到荧光修饰的蛋白质）的标准捕获速度。因此，要捕获植物细胞内瞬时蛋白质-蛋白质相互作用，需要一种专门的共聚焦显微镜，它可以在短时间内几乎同时通过细胞快速获取。这些数据的重建将用于产生植物蛋白-蛋白质相互作用的三维视图。这项资助将使北卡罗来纳大学的8位高产植物科学家能够更快地为基础科学做出重大贡献，从而提高作物产量、植物抗病能力和生物燃料生产。更广泛的影响将发生在课堂、公共场所和研究实验室。使用共聚焦显微镜将介绍给高年级学生在激烈的，动手细胞生物学实验室。公众将通过pi的教育展示和演示了解快速成像的力量。北卡罗来纳大学的植物科学小组每年共同培养20名本科生，15名博士生和30名博士后。所要求的仪器还将服务于校园许多其他实验室的共聚焦成像需求。这是北卡罗来纳大学校园内的第一个，也是北卡罗来纳州的第二个。许多植物科学小组以外的科学家将从这种专门的显微镜中受益匪浅。

A grant has been awarded to The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) under the supervision of Dr. Alan M. Jones entitled "Rapid Image Acquisition of Dynamic Arabidopsis Cells and For High-throughput Genetic Screens" for the purpose of acquiring and maintaining a specialized microscope. The enormous progress made in the plant sciences from sequencing the Arabidopsis genome has propelled research to the next higher research plane, where examining how and when cellular proteins interact over time at a high spatial resolution has become the new standard in demand. Both the demand and the need for sophisticated imaging instrumentation have increased, pari passu. However, imaging fluorescently-tagged proteins in plant cells faces several surmountable challenges. One is the dynamic nature of plant cells due to cytoplasmic streaming (rapid cellular movement) that occurs with speeds greater than the speed of standard capture by a standard confocal microscope (which is a specialized microscope that enables one to visualize fluorescently-modified proteins in all kinds of live cells). Therefore, to capture transient protein-protein interactions within plant cells requires a specialized confocal microscope that enables rapid acquisitions nearly simultaneously through the cell, over a short time scale. Reconstitution of this data will be used to produce a 3-dimensional view of plant protein-protein interactions in vivo over time. This grant will enable 8 highly-productive plant scientists at UNC to make significant and faster contributions to fundamental science leading to increased crop production, plant disease resistance, and biofuels production.The broader impact will occur in the classroom, in public, and in the research labs. The use of a confocal microscope will be introduced to upperclassmen in an intense, hands-on cell biology laboratory. The public will become aware of the power of rapid imaging through an educational display and presentations by the PIs. The plant science group at UNC collectively trains 20 undergraduates, 15 predoctoral, and 30 postdoctoral students each year. The requested instrument will also serve the confocal imaging needs of many additional labs on campus. It is the first of its kind on the UNC campus and only the second like it in the state of North Carolina. Many scientists beyond the plant science group will greatly benefit from this specialized microscope.