Microscopy applied to plants at the MPIPZ

Microscopy has an important place in the tool box available to the modern plant researcher and a multitude of increasingly sophisticated techniques has become available in recent years. The number of projects for which microscopy is used is continuously growing and almost every biologist makes use of microscopy techniques during his/her career. Therefore, a basic understanding of the principles of these techniques is crucial for every biologist in order to guarantee that they are applied correctly and that the data raised are analyzed appropriately.

In this course, the participants will get an overview of the different microscopy techniques available at the MPIPZ in correlation with the (plant) biological questions that they help to answer. In addition, a general introduction in microscopy will be given with emphasis on transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and fluorescence microscopy. Fluorescence techniques have gained enormously in significance since the introduction of fluorescent proteins and other fluorescent tags which allow visualization of molecules within living cells. The most important applications will be dealt with during this course with emphasis on those used for functional analyses of plant cells during plant development and plant – pathogen interactions.

The course consists of two parts each of half a day. Part 1, 16th of February 2017, is a series of three one-hour seminars. In part 2, 17th of February 2017, the participants receive a demo of three types of sophisticated microscopes at the MPIPZ: TEM, SEM and confocal laser scanning microscope (CLSM).