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A nondestructive method to estimate the chlorophyll content of Arabidopsis seedlings

Journal Article · · Plant Methods
 [1];  [2];  [2];  [2];  [3];  [4]
  1. Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC (United States). Dept. of Biology; Northwest A&F Univ., Shaanxi (China); University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  2. Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC (United States). Dept. of Biology
  3. Northwest A&F Univ., Shaanxi (China)
  4. Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC (United States). Dept. of Biology and Dept. of Pharmacology
+ Show Author Affiliations

Chlorophyll content decreases in plants under stress conditions, therefore it is used commonly as an indicator of plant health. Arabidopsis thaliana offers a convenient and fast way to test physiological phenotypes of mutations and treatments. But, chlorophyll measurements with conventional solvent extraction are not applicable to Arabidopsis leaves due to their small size, especially when grown on culture dishes. We provide a nondestructive method for chlorophyll measurement whereby the red, green and blue (RGB) values of a color leaf image is used to estimate the chlorophyll content from Arabidopsis leaves. The method accommodates different profiles of digital cameras by incorporating the ColorChecker chart to make the digital negative profiles, to adjust the white balance, and to calibrate the exposure rate differences caused by the environment so that this method is applicable in any environment. We chose an exponential function model to estimate chlorophyll content from the RGB values, and fitted the model parameters with physical measurements of chlorophyll contents. As further proof of utility, this method was used to estimate chlorophyll content of G protein mutants grown on different sugar to nitrogen ratios. Our method is a simple, fast, inexpensive, and nondestructive estimation of chlorophyll content of Arabidopsis seedlings. This method lead to the discovery that G proteins are important in sensing the C/N balance to control chlorophyll content in Arabidopsis.

Research Organization:
Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES) (SC-22)
Grant/Contract Number:
FG02-05ER15671
OSTI ID:
1368388
Journal Information:
Plant Methods, Journal Name: Plant Methods Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 13; ISSN 1746-4811
Publisher:
BioMed CentralCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Cited By (8)

Genetic characterization of a flap1 null mutation in Arabidopsis npq4 and pgr5 plants suggests that the regulatory role of FLAP1 involves the control of proton homeostasis in chloroplasts journal November 2018
Improved drought stress tolerance in Arabidopsis by CRISPR/dCas9 fusion with a Histone AcetylTransferase journal May 2019
The disease progression and molecular defense response in Chenopodium quinoa infected with Peronospora variabilis , the causal agent of quinoa downy mildew posted_content April 2019
Land-based crop phenotyping by image analysis: consistent canopy characterization from inconsistent field illumination journal May 2018
PlantSize Offers an Affordable, Non-destructive Method to Measure Plant Size and Color in Vitro journal February 2018
Silencing of Phytopathogen Communication by the Halotolerant PGPR Staphylococcus Equorum Strain EN21 journal December 2019
Color Calibration of Proximal Sensing RGB Images of Oilseed Rape Canopy via Deep Learning Combined with K-Means Algorithm journal December 2019
Measurement Method Based on Multispectral Three-Dimensional Imaging for the Chlorophyll Contents of Greenhouse Tomato Plants journal July 2019

Figures / Tables (6)

Fig. 1(p. 4)figure Fig. 1
Fig. 2(p. 6)figure Fig. 2
Fig. 3(p. 7)figure Fig. 3
Fig. 4(p. 8)figure Fig. 4
Table 1(p. 8)table Table 1
Table 2(p. 8)table Table 2

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Related Subjects

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Arabidopsis thaliana
C/N sensing
Chlorophyll content
ColorChecker chart
Heterotrimeric G protein complex
Stress assay