Autoradiography system with phosphor powder (ZnS:Ag) for imaging radioisotope dynamics in a living plant

Radioisotope tracer imaging is useful for studying plant physiological phenomena. In this study, we developed an autoradiography system with phosphor powder (ZnS:Ag),‘ Live-autoradiography ’, for imaging radioisotope dynamics in a living plant. This system visualizes the element migration and accumulation in intact plants contin- uously under a light environment. An imaging test was performed on point sources of 137Cs, with a radioactivity of 10–100 kBq of being observed; this indicates satisfactory system linearity between the image intensity and the radioactivity of 137Cs. Moreover, dynamics imaging of 137Cs was performed on an intact soybean plant for four days. The serial images indicated 137Cs accumulation in the node, vein, and growing point of the plant. The developed system can be used for studying plant physiological phenomena and can be employed for quantitative measurement of radionuclides