Ivan Radin
Are these little aliens👽 or baby moss plants🪴? 😄
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This collage is a great example of the power of plant regeneration. Each of these individual 7-day-old moss (Physcomitrium patens) plants, was regenerated from a single protoplast (plant cell with removed cell walls).
Apr 16, 2023 at 5:27pmWeb
Show threadIvan RadinApr 16, 2023

When moss cells are protoplasted, they behave like spores and can rebuild the whole plant. Over four days, protoplasts, when cultured on osmotically supported media, regenerate their cell walls and differentiate into chloronema cells, which slowly start to grow and divide.

When moved to regular media, the plants start to rapidly grow and divide. Within 3 days plants expand from 1-2 cells to what you see in the image.
At one point, some chloronema cells differentiate into caulonema cells.

Show threadIvan RadinApr 16, 2023
The images were made with the THUNDER Imager Model Organism dissecting scope (M205FCA) from @leicamicrosystems available at the WUSTL Biology department imaging core, using the 1x/0.03 objective with a 4x mag, greyscale camera, and below the sample illumination. The collage was made in Illustrator.