Summary
Because plants are nearly ubiquitous and keystone elements in most ecosystems, scientists have long envisioned using them as environmental sentinels for the sensing of stress and diseases in agricultural systems to toxic chemicals and biological agents outside of agriculture. One way to accomplish this would be to use unique spectral signatures from ‘native’ plants, and while spectra from vegetation tends to be messy, progress has been made. However, as biotechnological and genomic developments have emerged, the promise of genetically engineered sentinel plants has emerged. There are a number of hurdles to implementation such as problems with signal-to-noise and specificity of outputs, but the science has progressed nonetheless. This special issue captures the latest developments in phytosensor science and technology and also points the way to the future. Phytosensors are still in their infancy, and so it is exciting to witness growth and achievements as the science breaks through various hurdles looking toward the day when ‘talking’ plants can act as unmanned sensors to report on crucial components in the environment.
Published Paper
Igor Kovalchuk* and Olga Kovalchuk
Department of Biological Sciences, University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, AB, T1K 3M4, Canada
* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: igor.kovalchuk@uleth.ca
Received: 21 January 2008 / Accepted: 7 March 2008 / Published: 10 March 2008
Review: Transgenic Plants as Sensors of Environmental Pollution Genotoxicity
Sensors 2008, 8, 1539-1558 (PDF format, 354 K)
Mitra Mazarei 1,*, Irina Teplova 1,†, M. Reza Hajimorad 2 and C. Neal Stewart, Jr. 1
1 Department of Plant Sciences, 252 Ellington Plant Sciences, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA; E-mails: I. Teplova: teplova@hotmail.com; C. N. Stewart: nealstewart@utk.edu
2 Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology, 205 Ellington Plant Sciences, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA; E-mail: M. R. Hajimorad: mrh@utk.edu
† Present address: UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, The Cancer Institute of New Jersey, CABM (Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine), 679 Hoes Lane, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA.
* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: mmazarei@utk.edu
Received: 28 February 2008 / Accepted: 11 April 2008 / Published: 14 April 2008
Full Research Paper: Pathogen Phytosensing: Plants to Report Plant Pathogens
Sensors 2008, 8, 2628-2641 (PDF format, 532 K)
Anna-Lisa Paul 1, Matthew Bamsey 3, Alain Berinstain 3, Stephen Braham 5, Philip Neron 3, Trevor Murdoch 6, Thomas Graham 4 and Robert J. Ferl 1,2,*
1 Horticultural Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville FL 32601 USA; E-mail: alp@ufl.edu
2 Interdisciplinary Center for Biotechnology Research, University of Florida, Gainesville FL 32610;
3 Space Science, Canadian Space Agency, 6767 route de l’aeroport, Longueuil, Que., Canada J3Y 8Y9; E-mails: Matthew.Bamsey@space.gc.ca; alain.berinstain@space.gc.ca; Philip.Neron@space.gc.ca
4 Environmental Biology, University of Guelph, 50 Stone Road East, Guelph, Ont., Canada N1G 2W1; E-mail: tgraham@uoguelph.ca
5 PolyLAB, Simon Fraser University, 515 W. Hastings Street, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6B 5K3; E-mail: sbraham@sfu.ca
6 Bionetics Corporation, SLSL Bldg. M6-1025, Kennedy Space Center, FL 32899; E-mail: trevor.murdoch-1@nasa.gov
* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-mail: robferl@ufl.edu
Received: 3 March 2008 / Accepted: 15 April 2008 / Published: 18 April 2008
Full Research Paper: Deployment of a Prototype Plant GFP Imager at the Arthur Clarke Mars Greenhouse of the Haughton Mars Project
Sensors 2008, 8, 2762-2773 (PDF format, 299 K)
Under Revision
Title: "Signature Optical Cues: Emerging Technologies for Monitoring Plant Health"
Type of Paper: Review
Authors: Oi Wah Liew 1,*, Pek Ching Jenny Chong 1, Bingqing Li 2 and Anand K. Asundi 2
1 Centre for Biomedical and Life Sciences, Singapore Polytechnic, 500 Dover Road, Singapore 139651.
2 School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 639798.
* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. Tel: 65-67721162; Fax: 65-7721976. E-mail: OWLiew@sp.edu.sg
Abstract: Optical technologies can be developed as practical tools for monitoring plant health by providing unique spectral signatures that can be related to specific plant stresses. Signatures from thermal and fluorescence imaging have been used successfully to track pathogen invasion before visual symptoms are observed. Another approach for non-invasive plant health monitoring involves elucidating the manner with which light interacts with the plant leaf and being able to identify changes in spectral characteristics in response to specific stresses. To achieve this, an important step is to understand the biochemical and anatomical features governing leaf reflectance, transmission and absorption. Many studies have opened up possibilities that subtle changes in leaf reflectance spectra can be analyzed in a plethora ways for discriminating nutrient and water stress with limited success. There has also been interest in developing transgenic phytosensors to elucidate plant status in relation to environmental conditions. This approach involves unambiguous signal creation whereby genetic modification to generate reporter plants has resulted in distinct optical signals emitted in response to specific stressors. Most of these studies are limited to laboratory or controlled greenhouse environments at leaf level. The practical translation of spectral cues for application under field conditions at canopy and regional levels by remote aerial sensing remains a challenge. The movement towards technology development is well exemplified by the Controlled Ecological Life Support System under development by NASA which brings together technologies for monitoring plant status concomitantly with instrumentation for environmental monitoring and feedback control.
Submission
Sensors (http://www.mdpi.org/sensors/) is a highly rated journal with a 1.373 impact factor in 2006.
Sensors is indexed and abstracted very quickly by Chemical Abstracts, Analytical Abstracts, Science Citation Index Expanded, Chemistry Citation Index, Scopus and Google Scholar.
All papers should be submitted to sensors@mdpi.org with copy to the guest editors. To be published continuously until the deadline and papers will be listed together at the special websites.
Please visit the instructions for authors at http://www.mdpi.org/sensors/publguid.htm before submitting a paper. Open Access publication fees are 1050 CHF per paper. English correction fees (250 CHF) will be added in certain cases (1300 CHF per paper for those papers that require extensive additional formatting and/or English corrections.).
Mr. Matthias Burkhalter
Managing Editor
MDPI Center - Sensors Office
Matthaeusstrasse 11 - CH-4057 Basel / Switzerland
E-mail: sensors@mdpi.org
Tel +41 61 683 7734, Fax +41 61 302 8918
http://www.mdpi.org/sensors
MDPI - Matthias Burkhalter - 25 April 2008