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

在艾伦·M·琼斯博士的监督下，北卡罗来纳大学教堂山分校(UNC)获得了题为“动态拟南芥细胞的快速图像获取和高通量遗传筛选”的赠款，用于购买和维护一台专用显微镜。在植物科学方面，通过对拟南芥基因组测序取得的巨大进步，将研究推向了下一个更高的研究平面，在那里，研究细胞蛋白质如何以及何时以高空间分辨率随着时间的推移相互作用已成为需求的新标准。对精密成像仪器的需求和需求都在增加。然而，对植物细胞中的荧光标记蛋白质进行成像面临着几个可以克服的挑战。其一是植物细胞的动态性质，这是由于细胞质流动(细胞的快速移动)以高于标准共焦显微镜(这是一种专门的显微镜，使人们能够在所有类型的活细胞中观察到荧光修饰的蛋白质)的标准捕获速度发生的。因此，要捕捉植物细胞内的瞬时蛋白质-蛋白质相互作用，需要一种特殊的共聚焦显微镜，这种显微镜能够在短时间内几乎同时通过细胞进行快速采集。这些数据的重建将被用来产生随着时间推移在体内的植物蛋白质-蛋白质相互作用的三维视图。这笔赠款将使北卡罗来纳大学的8名高产植物科学家能够更快、更显著地为基础科学做出贡献，从而提高作物产量、植物抗病能力和生物燃料产量。更广泛的影响将发生在课堂、公共场合和研究实验室。在一个密集的亲身实践的细胞生物学实验室里，共焦显微镜的使用将被介绍给高年级学生。公众将通过教育性的展示和PI的演示，认识到快速成像的力量。北卡罗来纳大学的植物科学小组每年集体培养20名本科生、15名博士后和30名博士后。所要求的仪器还将满足校园内许多额外实验室的共焦成像需求。这在北卡罗来纳州大学校园里是第一次，在北卡罗来纳州也只是第二次。植物科学小组以外的许多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.