New technique to trace [<Superscript>15</Superscript>O]water uptake in a living plant with an imaging plate and a BGO detector system

Summary

We present a new trial to measure real time water movement in a living plant using the positron emitting radionuclide, ¹⁵O. ¹⁵O was prepared by ¹⁴N(d,n)¹⁵O reaction and 10 ml of ¹⁵O labeled water (2 GBq) was supplied from the root of a soybean plant. To detect activity, an imaging plate (IP) as well as a BGO detector system were used. Since the half-life of ¹⁵O is extremely short, (T _1/2= 122 s), water uptake measurement was performed only for 20 minutes. In order to get [¹⁵O]waterimage, an IP was exposed to the plant for 1 minute for two times. Since the exposure to an IP requires dark condition, a BGO detector system was developed to measure [¹⁵O]waterunder light condition. A couple of BGO probes was set at the lowest stem and the gamma-rays (0.511 MeV) emitted from the radionuclide were measured through coincidence counting and compared with the radioactivity measured from an IP image. Using this system, we have found that the water uptake activity of the plant was drastically reduced under high humidity (99%) and dark condition.