Guide to Plant-PET Imaging Using 11CO2

Jens Mincke; Jan Courtyn; Christian Vanhove; Stefaan Vandenberghe; Kathy Steppe

doi:10.3389/fpls.2021.602550

Guide to Plant-PET Imaging Using ¹¹CO₂

Front Plant Sci. 2021 Jun 2:12:602550. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2021.602550. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Jens Mincke^{1

2}, Jan Courtyn³, Christian Vanhove², Stefaan Vandenberghe², Kathy Steppe¹

Affiliations

¹ Laboratory of Plant Ecology, Department of Plants and Crops, Faculty of Bioscience Engineering, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
² MEDISIP - INFINITY - IBiTech, Department of Electronics and Information Systems, Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
³ Medical Molecular Imaging and Therapy, Department of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, Ghent University Hospital, Ghent, Belgium.

Abstract

Due to its high sensitivity and specificity for tumor detection, positron emission tomography (PET) has become a standard and widely used molecular imaging technique. Given the popularity of PET, both clinically and preclinically, its use has been extended to study plants. However, only a limited number of research groups worldwide report PET-based studies, while we believe that this technique has much more potential and could contribute extensively to plant science. The limited application of PET may be related to the complexity of putting together methodological developments from multiple disciplines, such as radio-pharmacology, physics, mathematics and engineering, which may form an obstacle for some research groups. By means of this manuscript, we want to encourage researchers to study plants using PET. The main goal is to provide a clear description on how to design and execute PET scans, process the resulting data and fully explore its potential by quantification via compartmental modeling. The different steps that need to be taken will be discussed as well as the related challenges. Hereby, the main focus will be on, although not limited to, tracing ¹¹CO₂ to study plant carbon dynamics.

Keywords: 11CO2; carbon-11 (11C); guide; image analysis; image quantification; plant-PET; positron autoradiography; positron emission tomography (PET).