AN ADVANCED IMAGE-ANALYSIS SYSTEM FOR EVALUATION OF SOMATIC EMBRYO DEVELOPMENT

Somatic embryogenesis is among the most promising means of large scale plant micropropagation. The development of somatic embryos is charact erized by their morphological changes. Embryos in culture usually exhi bit high heterogeneity and abnormality. As conventional microscopic ob servation is laborious and subjective, an objective and quantitative m orphokinetic description is important for further advancement of this important process technology. We developed an image analysis system ca pable of measuring morphological and size features of embryos. Subtle environmental effects on embryo development, which are often masked by the subjectivity of microscopic observation, are now discernible by s tatistically comparing the distributions of these morphological and si ze features. Th is image analysis and pattern recognition system was a pplied to examine the kinetics of a fed-batch culture. (C) 1996 John W iley & Sons, Inc.