Visualization of synchronous propagation of plant electrical signals using an optical recording method

Abstract

Optical recording is widely used in electrophysiology research of animal cells, providing a good reference for the measurement of plant electrical signals at the multi-cell level. The aim of this research is to develop a method for monitoring the dynamic synchronous electrical activity in plant cells. Using a leaf strip of Vicia faba L as the specimen, a voltage-sensitive dye (VSD) and a stereo fluorescent microscope were applied to acquire an optical image time series, considering the different biological nature of the plant cell from the animal cell. Subsequently, the synchronous variation trend of the dye fluorescence intensity was extracted and observed through image analysis using self-designed signal processing procedures. This proved the feasibility of a visualization method of synchronous propagation of plant electrical signals.