Marzullo, T. | bioRxiv Science

bioRxiv2023

A Library of Electrophysiological Responses in Plants - A Model of Transversal Education and Open Science

Electrophysiology in plants is understudied, and, moreover, an ideal model for student inclusion at all levels of education. Here we report on an investigation in "open science", whereby scientists worked with students and faculty from Chile, Germany, Serbia, South Korea, and the USA. The students recorded the electrophysiological signals of >15 plants in response to a flame or tactile stimulus applied to the leaves. We observed that approximately 60% of the plants studied showed an electrophysiological response with a delay of [~]3-6 seconds after stimulus presentation. In preliminary conduction velocity experiments, we verified that observed signals are indeed biological in origin, with information transmission speeds of [~]2-9 mm/s. Such easily replicable experiments can serve to include more investigators and students in contributing to our understanding of plant electrophysiology.

plant biology↗

bioRxiv2017

Low cost and open source multi-fluorescence imaging system for teaching and research in biology and bioengineering

The advent of easy-to-use open source microcontrollers, off-the-shelf electronics and customizable manufacturing technologies has facilitated the development of inexpensive scientific devices and laboratory equipment. In this study, we describe an imaging system that integrates low-cost and open-source hardware, software and genetic resources. The multi-fluorescence imaging system consists of readily available 470 nm LEDs, a Raspberry Pi camera and a set of filters made with low cost acrylics. This device allows imaging in scales ranging from single colonies to entire plates. We developed a set of genetic components (e.g. promoters, coding sequences, terminators) and vectors following the standard framework of Golden Gate, which allowed the fabrication of genetic constructs in a combinatorial, low cost and robust manner. In order to provide simultaneous imaging of multiple wavelength signals, we screened a series of long stokes shift fluorescent proteins that could be combined with cyan/green fluorescent proteins. We found CyOFP1, mBeRFP and sfGFP to be the most compatible set for 3-channel fluorescent imaging. We developed open source Python code to operate the hardware to run time-lapse experiments with automated control of illumination and camera and a Python module to analyze data and extract meaningful biological information. To demonstrate the potential application of this integral system, we tested its performance on a diverse range of imaging assays often used in disciplines such as microbial ecology, microbiology and synthetic biology. We also assessed its potential for STEM teaching in a high school environment, using it to teach biology, hardware design, optics, and programming. Together, these results demonstrate the successful integration of open source hardware, software, genetic resources and customizable manufacturing to obtain a powerful, low cost and robust system for STEM education, scientific research and bioengineering. All the resources developed here are available under open source licenses.

synthetic biology↗