Growth cabinets for plant cell biology

对植物生长和发育的研究极大地受益于采用模式遗传系统，如拟南芥。这些植物有一个紧凑的生长习性，允许在实验室培养皿培养琼脂为基础的营养。 允许受控环境的生长室对于使用模型遗传系统（如拟南芥）的实验室至关重要。该实验室是在发现控制植物形状的机制的最前沿，并专门从事基于显微镜的细胞事件和活苗生长的分析。我们的绝大多数研究涉及拟南芥幼苗的平板培养，我们现在正在计划高通量分子遗传筛选计划，大大增加了对培养箱的需求。我们在使用温度敏感突变体方面的专业化要求严格控制生长环境。目前，这项工作受到严重限制，因为我们没有合适的平板培养生长室，只能进入位于单独建筑物中的一个老化租赁室。为了有效地进行我们计划的研究，并对受控生长条件的干扰最小，我们需要将我们的植物培养物放置在实验室中，靠近我们用来测量转基因和/或突变幼苗的生长和其他发育特征的显微镜。新设备的购置已被配置到我们新实验室的设计中，该实验室目前正在建设中，作为政府刺激计划支持的生物科学大楼更新的一部分。

Research on plant growth and development is benefitting tremendously from the adoption of model genetic systems such as Arabidopsis thaliana. These plants have a compact growth habit that permits in-laboratory Petri dish culture on agar-based nutrients. Growth chambers that permit a controlled environment are critical for laboratories using model genetic systems such as Arabidopsis. The Wasteneys laboratory is at the forefront of discovering the mechanisms that control the shape of plants and specializes in microscopy-based analysis of cellular events and growth of living seedlings. The vast majority of our studies involve plate-based culture of Arabidopsis seedlings and we are now planning high throughput molecular-genetic screening programs that greatly increase the demand for culture chambers. Our specialization in the use of temperature-sensitive mutants requires a tightly controlled growth environment. Currently, this work is severely constrained because we do not own appropriate growth chambers fro plate culture and can only access one aging rental chamber located in a separate building. In order to carry out our planned research efficiently and with minimal disturbance to the controlled growth conditions we need to house our plant cultures in the lab, in close proximity to the microscopes that we use to measure growth and other developmental characteristics of our transgenic and or mutant seedlings. This acquisition of new equipment has been configured into the design of our new laboratory, which is currently under construction as part of a government stimulus package-supported renewal of the Biosciences building.