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Understanding microstructural deformation of apple tissue from 4D micro-CT imaging

Book Contribution - Book Chapter Conference Contribution

Water transport in plant tissues is often associated with deformation of the tissues. The ability to visualize and model this deformation is an integral part of better understanding of the relevant parameters involved. Traditional imaging techniques are both time consuming and destructive, this makes them unsuitable for visualizing the tissue deformation process, as both time and environmental conditions are critical parameters. However, even with the use of nondestructive imaging techniques such as X-ray micro computed tomography (micro-CT), visualizing the dehydration process is difficult due to the unstable nature of the samples as well as limitations imposed by accuracy of conventional image reconstruction of deforming objects. As a result, micro-CT images of deforming tissues can often not be processed easily. Here, we applied micro-CT with a novel 4D iterative reconstruction algorithm to more accurately visualize the deformation of apple cortex samples during dehydration such that the deformation process can be quantified. Outer cortex samples of Kanzi apples of approximately 5mm in diameter were dehydrated in a controlled environment of 22 °C and 30% RH via a interleaved high resolution micro-CT scanning process along with the advanced reconstruction technique to obtain images at 3 µm voxel size. The reconstructed images allowed us to create a time series of high resolution 3D renderings of the changes in the cellular structure of apple cortex samples through the first six hours of the dehydration process. The differential shrinkage rates of the outer and inner cell layers of the samples were analysed, as well as the size and positional changes of cells within the dehydrating samples in reference to the center axis. We expect such quantitative description of cell and cell layer deformation to be useful in enhancing the accuracy of hygro-mechanical models of plant tissues.
Book: INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON SENSING PLANT WATER STATUS - METHODS AND APPLICATIONS IN HORTICULTURAL SCIENCE
Pages: 7 - 13
Number of pages: 7
ISBN:9789462611931
Publication year:2018
BOF-keylabel:yes
IOF-keylabel:yes
Authors from:Private, Higher Education
Accessibility:Open