Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 Dec 21;18(12):e0295823.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0295823. eCollection 2023.

The rhizodynamics robot: Automated imaging system for studying long-term dynamic root growth

Aradhya Rajanala  1 , Isaiah W Taylor  2 , Erin McCaskey  1 , Christopher Pierce  1 , Jason Ligon  3 , Enes Aydin  1 , Carrie Hunner  3 , Amanda Carmichael  3 , Lauren Eserman  3 , Emily E D Coffee  3 , Anupam Mijar  2 , Milan Shah  2 , Philip N Benfey  2 , Daniel I Goldman  1
Affiliations

The rhizodynamics robot: Automated imaging system for studying long-term dynamic root growth

Aradhya Rajanala et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

The study of plant root growth in real time has been difficult to achieve in an automated, high-throughput, and systematic fashion. Dynamic imaging of plant roots is important in order to discover novel root growth behaviors and to deepen our understanding of how roots interact with their environments. We designed and implemented the Generating Rhizodynamic Observations Over Time (GROOT) robot, an automated, high-throughput imaging system that enables time-lapse imaging of 90 containers of plants and their roots growing in a clear gel medium over the duration of weeks to months. The system uses low-cost, widely available materials. As a proof of concept, we employed GROOT to collect images of root growth of Oryza sativa, Hudsonia montana, and multiple species of orchids including Platanthera integrilabia over six months. Beyond imaging plant roots, our system is highly customizable and can be used to collect time- lapse image data of different container sizes and configurations regardless of what is being imaged, making it applicable to many fields that require longitudinal time-lapse recording.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. GROOT design and components.
Generating Rhizodynamic Observations Over Time (GROOT) robot design and components. A) Photointerrupter sensors and their locations (marked with blue dots) on the GROOT system. B) NEMA 17 stepper motor. C) Openbuilds belt driven linear actuator showing NEMA 17 motor attachment with belt over the motor shaft. D) GROOT system built at Georgia Tech showing the vertical and horizontal belt driven linear actuator locations. E) Magenta 7 polycarbonate containers used for imaging. F) FLIR Flea3 Camera with GPIO cord attached to use for hardware trigger functionality. G) Dual camera setup used for GROOT with angled camera positioned above forward-facing camera.
Fig 2
Fig 2. Examples of customization possibilities for GROOT.
A) Quasi 2D container used for root imaging as a complement to the 3D containers used in the studies above B) Images demonstrating environmental heterogeneities that can be added to the root imaging container growth media, such as angled plates and the corresponding growth patterns that formed when growing Oryza sativa rice roots towards them.
Fig 3
Fig 3. Monitoring slowly growing roots using GROOT.
A) Atlanta Botanical Garden (ABG) GROOT System. B) an image series of orchid roots growing over ~100 hours, red box highlights region of interest selected for tracking. C) a heatmap of orchid root radius of curvature as a function of root length over time. Root length D) and growth rate E) over time reveal relatively constant growth over the tracked time period (~26 days). Images taken over longer time frames of F) Platanthera integrilabia and G) Hudsonia montana growth.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

References

    1. Shaw M. H. Zhan M. Elmi V. Pawar C. Essmann. 2018. "Three-Dimensional Behavioral Phenotyping of freely moving C elegans using quantitative light field microscopy.," PLOS ONE, p. 13(7). - PMC - PubMed
    1. Kerr J.N.D. and Nimmerjahn A. 2012. "Functional imaging in freely moving animals.," Current Opinion in Neurobiology., pp. 22(1): p. 45–53. doi: 10.1016/j.conb.2011.12.002 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Hara-Miyauchi C., Tsuji O., Hanyu A., Okada S., Yasuda A., Fukano T., et al.. 2012. "Bioluminescent system for dynamic imaging of cell and animal behavior," Biochemical and Biophysical Research, pp. 419(2): p. 188–193. doi: 10.1016/j.bbrc.2012.01.141 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Megason S.G. and Fraser S.E. 2007. "Imaging in Systems Biology.," Cell, pp. 130(5): p. 784–795. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2007.08.031 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Gritti N., Kienle S., Filina O. and van Zon J.S. 2016. "Long-term time-lapse microscopy of C. elegans post-embryonic development," Nature Communications, p. 7(1): p. 12500. doi: 10.1038/ncomms12500 - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Grants and funding

This work was funded the National Science Foundation (nsf.gov) grant NSF PHY-1915445 awarded to D.I.G and P.N.B, the Dunn Family Professorship awarded to D.I.G, and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (moore.org) grant GBMF3405 awarded to P.N.B. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.