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Plants
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Microfluidic Systems in Plant Research
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Microfluidic Systems in Plant Research

A special issue of Plants (ISSN 2223-7747). This special issue belongs to the section "Plant Cell Biology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 May 2024 | Viewed by 1075

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Thorsten Seidel

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Dynamic Cell Imaging, Faculty of Biology, Bielefeld University, 33615 Bielefeld, Germany
Interests: proton transport in plant cells; protoplasts; live cell imaging
Dr. Martina Viefhues

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Experimental Biophysics, Faculty of Physics, Bielefeld University, 33615 Bielefeld, Germany
Interests: biophysics; microfluidics; single cell analysis

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Microfluidics have turned out to be versatile tools for plant research and plant breeding. The development of microfluidic devices has facilitated the analysis of roots, as well as analyses of the single level and cell fusions. Accordingly, the devices have broad functionalities and sizes and have been applied for model plants and many crops. Thus, their applications range from fundamental research to crop improvement. In many cases, a strong partnership has evolved between quantitative microscopy and microfluidics. This Special Issue of Plants about microfluidics in plant research will demonstrate the versatility and sum up the advantages of microfluidics in plant science. 

Dr. Thorsten Seidel
Dr. Martina Viefhues
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Plants is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • microfluidics
  • protoplasts
  • cell fusion
  • root development
  • cell cycle

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

12 pages, 5834 KiB  
Article
Microfluidic Single-Cell Study on Arabidopsis thaliana Protoplast Fusion—New Insights on Timescales and Reversibilities
by Thorsten Seidel, Philipp Johannes Artmann, Ioannis Gkekas, Franziska Illies, Anna-Lena Baack and Martina Viefhues
Plants 2024, 13(2), 295; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants13020295 - 18 Jan 2024
Viewed by 883
Abstract
Plant cells are omnipotent and breeding of new varieties can be achieved by protoplast fusion. Such fusions can be achieved by treatment with poly(ethylene glycol) or by applying an electric field. Microfluidic devices allow for controlled conditions and targeted manipulation of small batches [...] Read more.
Plant cells are omnipotent and breeding of new varieties can be achieved by protoplast fusion. Such fusions can be achieved by treatment with poly(ethylene glycol) or by applying an electric field. Microfluidic devices allow for controlled conditions and targeted manipulation of small batches of cells down to single-cell analysis. To provide controlled conditions for protoplast fusions and achieve high reproducibility, we developed and characterized a microfluidic device to reliably trap some Arabidopsis thaliana protoplasts and induced cell fusion by controlled addition of poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG, with a molecular weight of 6000). Experiments were conducted to determine the survival rate of isolated protoplasts in our microfluidic system. Afterward, PEG-induced fusion was studied. Our results indicate that the following fusion parameters had a significant impact on the fusion efficiency and duration: PEG concentration, osmolality of solution and flow velocity. A PEG concentration below 10% led to only partial fusion. The osmolality of the PEG fusion solution was found to strongly impact the fusion process; complete fusion of two source cells sufficiently took part in slightly hyper-osmotic solutions, whereas iso-osmotic solutions led to only partial fusion at a 20% PEG concentration. We observed accelerated fusion for higher fluid velocities. Until this study, it was common sense that fusion is one-directional, i.e., once two cells are fused into one cell, they stay fused. Here, we present for the first time the reversible fusion of protoplasts. Our microfluidic device paves the way to a deeper understanding of the kinetics and processes of cell fusion. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Microfluidic Systems in Plant Research)
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