LamHis : virtual histological slides for plant anatomy

Software and digital applications Sustainable agriculture Food and agrifood technology Natural resources and territories
A tool and expertise for the creation, digitisation and interpretation of histological slides, enabling the exploration and analysis of plant components through cellular imaging and supporting high-throughput processing solutions.
Aubergine observée en micro-tomographie aux rayons X avec segmentation des graines (en bleu) et des tissus vasculaires (en vert) @Marc Lartaud, Cirad

Eggplant observed in X-ray micro-tomography with segmentation of seeds (blue) and vascular tissues (green). © Marc Lartaud, CIRAD

Digitisation of histological slides adapted to plant anatomy

LamHis technology enables the digitisation of histological sections mounted on glass slides. Beyond securing reference histological slides, it becomes possible to observe these digitised slides at very high resolution on a remote computer, just as with a microscope, and to explore the structure of plant organs at tissue, cellular and subcellular levels.

This method, already widely used in human and veterinary medicine, offers major potential for plant anatomy. LamHis provides access to this technology through dedicated tools and expert know-how made available by CIRAD.

4 advantages of slide digitisation

This technique, adapted to plant science, enables:

  • the preservation and management of glass slides by creating virtual slides;
  • retrieval and visualisation of digitised slides free of charge using navigation software (NDPI Viewer, open source) or via Zoomify;
  • simultaneous access to stored slides by multiple users on different computers;
  • annotation of slides for improved use in teaching, monitoring or scientific research.

LamHis: a wide range of applications through plant imaging

LamHis is designed for a variety of professionals working with or teaching plant materials who wish to develop more advanced observation approaches: breeders, technologists, R&D engineers, slide curators, educational content developers and training institutions.

This service enables a wide range of applications for different stakeholders:

Museums, conservatories and botanical gardens:

Preservation of slide collections and multi-user access to digital libraries.

Agricultural and industrial sectors: food crops, spice and aromatic plants, latex-producing plants, fibre crops, dye plants:

Varietal selection and diagnosis; identification of areas and characteristics of interest in fibres; visualisation of extraction processes for compounds of interest and optimisation of extraction processes supported by imaging.

Distance learning organisations in plant anatomy:

Illustration of courses and development of tutorials and practical sessions.

The service offering is structured around complementary services:

  1. Training laboratory teams to strengthen their skills in histology;
  2. Support on quality assurance, standardisation and large-scale integration of virtual slides.

For more information on the plant histocytology and imaging platform : Click here

The research team :
The Plant Histology and Cell Imaging Platform team, within the Agap Joint Research Unit, has more than 70 years of experience in this field, giving it a strong lead and recognition in France and across Europe in plant anatomy. The researchers have developed high-level expertise in the design of advanced equipment and protocols for plant sample processing, embedding for slide preparation, staining, digitisation and annotation of structures.

 

See also