De-etiolation represents the most dramatic phase in the plant life cycle, characterized by a number of morphological changes and complete rearrangement of plant metabolism (from hetero- to auto-tropic)¹. Chlorophyll biosynthesis is a hallmark of light-induced de-etiolation in plants and a very dynamic process. Formation of chlorophyll from dark-produced precursor protochlorophyllide must be tightly coordinated to avoid damage due to reactive byproducts². The protochlorophyllide reduction to chlorophyllide is catalyzed by light-dependent protochlorophyllide oxidoreductases (PORs), unique enzymes activated directly by light. The reaction is very fast, taking place in the order of ms to s³, leading to recognizable chlorophyll accumulation within minutes after etiolated seedling irradiation⁴^,⁵^,⁶. More time (from hours to days) is required for chloroplast biogenesis to establish a fully functional photosynthetic apparatus³.

Various methods exist to analyze chlorophyll content, including high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) or spectrophotometry. Usually, these techniques demand the destruction of plant tissue⁴^,⁵^,⁶, restricting the determination of changes in chlorophyll levels over time. Methods allowing non-invasive chlorophyll kinetics establishment may open a whole new perspective to study plants in diverse aspects ranging from fundamental research questions, such as analyzing the process of chlorophyll synthesis in time and space, to more practical applications, such as assessment of stress tolerance or effect of biostimulants on the chlorophyll kinetics. Considering this, we introduced a system for monitoring chlorophyll formation, iReenCAM⁷. It incorporates a CCD camera, emission filters, light sources, and a pipeline for automated fluorescence analysis (Figure 1). The main feature of the developed device is high spatial and temporal resolution, outperforming in the parameters used in current approaches, and sufficient sensitivity and specificity when compared with standard analytical methods⁷.

The non-invasive procedure described here requires minimum reagents and comprises simple steps, allowing to obtain a chlorophyll kinetics profile in living Arabidopsis seedlings during very early stages of de-etiolation. The protocol can be useful for the study of highly dynamic process of chlorophyl synthesis influenced by number of factors, both exogenous (salt, drought, biostimulants, heavy metals, etc.) and endogenous (typically associated with changes in the gene activity) in origin without a need to detach any plant tissue, thus avoiding additional stress.

Chlorophyll Fluorescence Measurement and Analysis in Arabidopsis Seedlings Using the iReenCAM System