Plant on a chip

Plant on a chip is a name of a microsystem for plant tissue culture to quantify pollen tube guidance in Arabidopsis thaliana. The assay builds off of earlier device which characterizes root behavior in Arabidopsis thaliana using a microfluidic channel. The device comprises a microfluidic groove in which plant growth media and plant tissues (e.g., pistil and ovules) can be accommodated. The microfluidic device surrounding the tissue is made of polydimethylsiloxane which is a translucent, porous and flexible boundary allowing microscopic imaging.
The miniaturization of micro environments can enable mimicking in vivo conditions. Plant hormones (e.g., signaling molecules) are partially secreted by ovules guide pollen tubes to ovules to initiate fertilization. This phenomenon is called chemotaxis which occurs by the diffusion of attractants through plant growth media. Optimization of experimental conditions in Plant on a Chip allows testing the effects of environmental conditions such as tissue housing, diffusion rates, growth factors, saturation length of pollen tubes and growth rate of pollen tubes. Quantifying pollen tube behavior in response to pistil tissues will allow understanding how molecular signaling pathways take place in vivo.
Attractants secreted by ovules
Unfertilized ovules from Arabidopsis thaliana can be placed in alcoves of a microfluidic channel. The growth of sperm-carrying pollen tubes from a pistil toward the ovules can be observed microscopically allowing quantitative analysis. Therefore, Plant on a Chip carries a potential to replace Petri dish plant tissue culture, and enable studies of plant reproduction using customized and controllable microenvironments.
Inventors
Plant on a Chip was developed by Yitshak Zohar, Ph.D., who is the Director of Micro/Nano Fabrication Center at the University of Arizona, Ravishankar Palanivelu, Ph.D., a plant biologist at the University of Arizona, and Linan Jiang, Ph.D., a research professor of optical sciences and mechanical engineering at the University of Arizona. Verification of validation experiments of Plant on a Chip were conducted by Ali Yetisen, a bioengineer at the University of Cambridge. Plant on a Chip was created using a microfabrication method known as soft lithography.
Funding
The research was funded by the National Science Foundation.

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