Developing Tools to interrogate the skin of fruits for understanding disease susceptibility
This project is suitable for a 1-year MSc in Physics. The project does not currently have funding attached, students must be able to fund the fees and their living costs either through their own funds or a scholarship. Current information on fees is available here.
Supervisors: Adrian Podoleanu, Manuel Marques
Collaborators: Colleagues in the NIAB EMR, Prof. Xiangming Xu, Dr. Matevz-Papp Rupar and Dr. Richard Colgan, University of Greenwich
OCT is a high resolution, non invasive, optical imaging technology that is expanding from medical imaging application to other areas, such as biosciences.
Plant cuticle and underlying epidermis forms the outermost layer protecting plants from desiccation and from abiotic and biotic stresses. The cuticle comprises mainly of polyester cutin and epicuticular waxes that help to prevent moisture loss and maintenance of cell turgor. In fruits changes in surface properties play an important role in increasing consumer appeal during maturation through development of ‘blooms’ and colour changes. Importantly, the cuticle and epidermis form a mechanical barrier acting as the first-line in defence against the ingress from plant pathogens.
The research will aim to develop OCT to underpin our understanding of changes in fruit surfaces properties that may affect susceptibility to pathogen attack during development and ripening. This exciting project will provide a significant contribution to our understanding how to develop sustainable strategies to reduce food loss and wastage.
A preliminary study performed by a NIAB student on blueberries on an adapted OCT set-up at the UoK (internaly supported by NIAB and UoK), has shown good promise of OCT in assessing non-destructively their internal structure with micrometer resolution, that allows collection of significant data not available before. The results suggested that it was possible to identify key differences in wax distribution over time along with changes in the turgor and shape of epidermal cells and development of microcracks within epidermis and wax layers, that may lead to accelerated water loss and become fungal entry sites to establish latent infection. More promisingly, these features differed considerably between cultivars with differential post-harvest storage potentials.
There is no deadline for the project – applicants will be assessed on a rolling basis – although please note any separate deadlines for scholarships or funding. For further information or informal enquiries, please contact Professor Adrian Podoleanu (A.G.H.Podoleanu@kent.ac.uk).
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