Real-time lineage analysis to study cell division orientation in the arabidopsis shoot meristem

Abstract

Cells in the Arabidopsis shoot apical meristem are small and divide frequently throughout the life-time of the organism making them good candidates for studying the mechanisms of cell division in plants. But tracking these cell divisions requires multiple images to be taken of the same specimen over time which means the specimen must stay alive throughout the process. This chapter provides details on how to prepare plants for live imaging, keep them alive and growing through multiple time points, and how to process the data to extract cell boundary coordinates from three-dimensional images.