APS March Meeting 2020
Volume 65, Number 1
Monday–Friday, March 2–6, 2020;
Denver, Colorado
Session W68: The Organic Electrochemical Transistor
8:00 AM–11:00 AM,
Friday, March 6, 2020
Room: Four Seasons 4
Sponsoring
Unit:
DPOLY
Chair: Dean DeLongchamp, National Institute of Standards and Technology
Abstract: W68.00003 : Monitoring plant physiology with organic electrochemical transistors
Abstract
Presenter:
Eleni Stavrinidou
(Linkoping University)
Author:
Eleni Stavrinidou
(Linkoping University)
Plants are the basis of food, providers of oxygens and regulators of the ecosystem. Plants convert solar energy into chemical energy with the process of photosynthesis where carbon dioxide is converted to sugar molecules. Sugars are not only the energy source in plants but also important signalling molecules, involved in regulation of physiology including stress responses. Currently there are no methods that allow real time monitoring of sugar transport in plants. Sugar detection is based on enzymatic assays, chromatography and/or mass spectrometry; all of these methods require sample collection and preparation. Organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs) are ideal tools for interfacing with organisms, since they can translate complex biological input to an electronic readout signal. OECT sensors can operate in complex media and they can directly detect products from the biological unit. In my group we are developing sugars sensors based on the organic electrochemical transistor for monitoring plant processes in-vitro and in-vivo. In a first example we measure the export of glucose in real time, from isolated chloroplasts, with a temporal resolution of 1min. The OECT based platform is able to distinguish the metabolic phase of the chloroplast prior isolation from the plant. In another example we are developing implantable OECT-based sugar sensors for in-vivo, real time monitoring of sugar transport in trees. The OECTs sensors show high device to device reproducibility, stability during the operation in the in-vivo environment and most importantly they do not cause a significant wound response from the plant. The sensors reveal kinetics of sugars transport that were not observed before. Our work benchmarks the OECT-based sensors as powerful tools for monitoring processes in plants, in real time both, in in-vivo and in-vitro systems.