DNA imaging cytometry in plant analysis: a review

Abstract

The review focuses on image cytometry of plant cells, used to determine the ploidy level and genome size of plants. The review presents examples of basic plant studies using the method of analyzing static images of nuclei, the dyes used, sample preparation methods, data analysis, laboratory equipment and software. It also provides an application of the image cytometry in the study of vascular plants. An important parameter of any method is reproducibility and comparative characteristics relative to other methods. The article compares absolute values of plant genome size measurements made by image cytometry and flow cytometry, as well as the necessary minimum parameters to ensure measurement accuracy and limitations of the method. The review will be useful when planning an experiment on DNA content analysis without using expensive equipment – flow cytometers, but only on the basis of optical or fluorescence microscopy data.

Code and data availability

This is a review article on DNA image cytometry in plants. No authors' public phenotype datasets, plant images, analysis code, or trained models are deposited or linked. The BIODECOD application is only cited as an in-press conference abstract with no public URL; the Kew Plant DNA C-values Database and cited software (

No evidence-backed public reproduction asset is currently recorded.