“PlanTIS: A positron emission tomograph for imaging 11C Transport in Plants”

Plant growth and transport processes are highly dynamic. They are characterized by plant-internal control processes and by strong interactions with the spatially and temporally varying environment. Analysis of structure- function relations of growth and transport in plants will strongly benefit from the development of non-invasive techniques. PlanTIS (Plant Tomographic Imaging System) is designed for non-destructive 3D-imaging of positron emitting radiotracers. It will permit functional analysis of the dynamics of carbon distribution in plants including bulky organs. It will be applicable for screening transport properties of plants to evaluate e.g. temperature adaptation of genetically modified plants. PlanTIS is a PET scanner dedicated to monitor the dynamics of the ¹¹C distribution within a plant while or after assimilation of ¹¹CO₂. Front end electronics and data acquisition architecture of the scanner are based on the ClearPET^TM system [1]. Four detector modules form one of two opposing detector blocks. Optionally, a hardware coincidence detection between the blocks can be applied. In general the scan duration is rather long (~ 1 hour) compared to the decay time of ¹¹C (20 min). As a result the count rates can vary over a wide range and accurate dead time correction is necessary.