Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 13, 2026

Live Confocal Imaging of Developing Arabidopsis Flowers
Published on: April 1, 2017
Live-cell analysis of plant reproduction: live-cell imaging, optical manipulation, and advanced microscopy
Daisuke Kurihara1, Yuki Hamamura, Tetsuya Higashiyama
1Division of Biological Science, Graduate School of Science, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya, Aichi, 464-8602, Japan. kuri@bio.nagoya-u.ac.jp
Abstract:
Sexual reproduction ensures propagation of species and enhances genetic diversity within populations. In flowering plants, sexual reproduction requires complicated and multi-step cell-to-cell communications among male and female cells. However, the confined nature of plant reproduction processes, which occur in the female reproductive organs and several cell layers of the pistil, limits our ability to observe these events in vivo. In this review, we discuss recent live-cell imaging in in vitro systems and the optical manipulation techniques that are used to capture the dynamic mechanisms representing molecular and cellular communications in sexual plant reproduction.

