Hi John, I'd further add that the key determinant of whether a structure shows up on CT (or any other X-ray based technology) is atomic number (or effective atomic number for compounds). Tissues composed predominantly of high-AW components are more radio-opaque, and so if there are two tissues of different radiopacity adjacent to each other a difference will be visible. I suspect this might not differ greatly for the different components of a leaf, but you would probably be a better judge of that than I (I'm not a plant biologist). If there is a major difference in atomic number, as there is between soft tissue (primarily protein and water) vs bone (high calcium and phosphorus content), you can expect to differentiate between structures.
MRI provides comparable or better spatial resolution to CT, but better contrast resolution - ability to distinguish similar but not identical tissues based on their water content. High-resolution micro-MRI units exist and have been used to show amazing detail of bone microstructure. No idea if anyone has used them for plant structural analysis. Hope this helps you out Tristan Burgess Hello John, I think I can at least get the ball rolling for you. Here is my understanding of the situation: micro-CT would probably not be your best option if you wanted to image leaf anatomy. CT images based on how translucent materials are to x-rays. In general, this means that CT is best at imaging hard structures and not as good at imaging soft structures. I will admit that I am not very familiar with plant anatomy, but, just based on my day to day experiences, leaves don't feel like they would have any structures that CT would pick up on. Have you considered using MRI instead? MRI images based on the presence of Hydrogen atoms. As a result, it is very good at showing where water is present in a specimen and, therefore, at imaging soft tissues. I have seen MRI used to image plants before, but I am not sure if it could image something as small as a leaf. That is at least my understanding of the situation. Perhaps someone with more experience can provide more details. Hoped this helped, K. James Soda On Fri, Sep 23, 2011 at 10:18 PM, John Skillman <[email protected]> wrote: > Hello all, > I have colleagues that are looking into purchasing a micro-CT scanner for > comparative animal morphology work. I'm interested in whether this method > can be used for internal anatomy studies of leaves. There seems to be very > little literature where microCT has been used for leaf studies but I'm not > sure why. There is probably some technical issue that I am unaware of that > limits the utility of microCT for use with fresh leaf tissues. Can anyone > explain this to me or point me in the direction of a useful resource on > this > topic? > Thanks > John Skillman >
