Spectral Distribution of Ultra-Weak Photon Emission as a Response to Wounding in Plants: An In Vivo Study.

Ankush Prasad,Roeland Van Wijk,Hanumanth Rao Naidu Devireddy,Dattatreya Prabhu Rachakonda,Prabhakar Gouripeddi,Alina Ovsii,Pavel Pospíšil

doi:10.3390/biology9060139

Ankush Prasad, Roeland Van Wijk + Show 5 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/biology9060139

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Abstract

It is well established that every living organism spontaneously emits photons referred to as ultra-weak photon emission (synonym biophotons or low-level chemiluminescence) which inherently embodies information about the wellbeing of the source. In recent years, efforts have been made to use this feature as a non-invasive diagnostic tool related to the detection of food quality, agriculture and biomedicine. The current study deals with stress resulting from wounding (mechanical injury) on Arabidopsis thaliana and how it modifies the spontaneous ultra-weak photon emission. The ultra-weak photon emission from control (non-wounded) and stressed (wounded) plants was monitored using different modes of ultra-weak photon emission measurement sensors like charge-coupled device (CCD) cameras and photomultiplier tubes (PMT) and the collected data were analyzed to determine the level of stress generated, photon emission patterns, and underlying biochemical process. It is generally considered that electronically excited species formed during the oxidative metabolic processes are responsible for the ultra-weak photon emission. In the current study, a high-performance cryogenic full-frame CCD camera was employed for two-dimensional in-vivo imaging of ultra-weak photon emission (up to several counts/s) and the spectral analysis was done by using spectral system connected to a PMT. The results show that Arabidopsis subjected to mechanical injury enhances the photon emission and also leads to changes in the spectral pattern of ultra-weak photon emission. Thus, ultra-weak photon emission can be used as a tool for oxidative stress imaging and can pave its way into numerous plant application research.

Highlights

All living organisms including microorganisms, plants, and animals spontaneously generate ultra-weak photons which are synonymously referred to as biophotons or low-level chemiluminescence [1,2,3,4]
This section summarizes the results from the two different types of ultra-weak photon emission measurements described above arising from mechanical injury which is the core of the present investigation
Spontaneous ultra-weak photon emission observed from the non-wounded leaves of Arabidopsis is known to be contributed by metabolic oxidative processes while we can observe that the wounding of Arabidopsis leaves resulted in the enhancement of ultra-weak photon emission which is caused by wound-induced oxidative processes

Summary

Introduction

All living organisms including microorganisms, plants, and animals spontaneously generate ultra-weak photons which are synonymously referred to as biophotons or low-level chemiluminescence [1,2,3,4]. The ultra-weak photon emission is closely related to various types of factors, such as exposure to exogenous toxins [7,8], pathogen attack [9,10], temperature fluctuations [11,12,13], acute stress [14,15,16,17], drought/flood [18], mechanical injuries [19,20,21], and exogenous reactive oxygen species (ROS) induced oxidative stress [5,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30]. Whether the ROS produced would serve as signaling molecules or could cause oxidative damage to the plant tissues, depends entirely on the delicate equilibrium between ROS production, and their scavenging

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