Secret Colors

Tim Chaya / Plant and Soil Sciences / Graduate Student
Secret Colors
Multiphoton microscopy – N/A – Square Image
Plant leaf structure is composed of a plethora of compounds not visible to the naked eye. Using multiphoton microscopy I was able to excite these molecules and resolve out spectra of the components that form the leaf. This particular experiment I wanted to quantify differences in lignin between two genetically different maize lines. Lignin is a key structural molecule that provides rigidity to plants and trees. When lignin is excited with 770nm laser, I was able to separate out the unique spectral peak and was able to quantify the difference between the two lines. In this image, the lignin lignin would be seen in all cell types, but is most visible in the xylem that is colored magenta and blue.