Observation of cavitation and water-refilling processes in plants with X-ray phase contrast microscopy

Abstract

With the spatial coherence of X-rays and high flux and brightness of the 3rd generation synchrotron radiation facility, X-ray phase contrast microscopy (XPCM) at Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility (SSRF) can provide high resolution dynamic imaging of low electron density materials in principle. In this paper, we investigated the cavitation and water-refilling processes in rice and bamboo leaves utilizing XPCM at SSRF. The occurrence of xylem cavitation was recorded in vivo. The study also revealed that under different dehydration conditions, cavitation occurs in different degrees, and therefore, the refilling process is different. The results demonstrate that SSRF can provide high enough fluxes to study dynamic processes in plants in real-time, and XPCM is expected to be a promising method to reveal the mechanisms of cavitation and its repair in plants nondestructively.