Every NIR spectrum includes hundreds of data points corresponding to both physical and chemical information related to an object. NIR spectroscopy coupled with suitable discrimination analysis provides an opportunity to discriminate different health status of plants done in real time and non-destructively. Moreover, it allows a biological specimen to remain alive for continuous in vivo monitoring during biotic stress such as a viral infection or abiotic stress such as cold and drought stress.
The aquaphotomics provided methodology to follow up the impact of a virus infection based on tracking the changes in water absorbance spectral patterns (WASPs) along the progression of disease. In a study by Jinendra et al. (Jinendra et al. 2010) aquaphotomics was proven to be successful in providing a simple rapid and non-destructive method for detection of soybean mosaic viral infection. Compared to the currently used methods such as enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), polymerase chain reaction (PCR), and Western blotting, aquaphotomics was unsurpassable in the terms of cost-effectiveness, speed, and accuracy. The diagnosis of soybean plants infected with soybean mosaic virus was done at the latent, symptomless stage of the disease and it showed that absorbance area of the water solvation shell and weakly hydrogen bonded water are of crucial importance for the disease diagnostics.
Similarly, different water spectral patterns were found in leaves of genetically modified soybean leaves with different cold stress abilities (Jinendra 2011). Research on soybean species identification related to their cold resistance abilities have proved that genetically modified soybean plants with different resistance to cold can be characterized by different water absorbance patterns.
Jinendra, B. 2011. “Near infrared spectroscopy and aquaphotomics : novel tool for biotic and abiotic stress diagnosis of soybean.”PhD, Kobe University.
Jinendra, B., K. Tamaki, S. Kuroki, M. Vassileva, S. Yoshida, and R. Tsenkova. 2010. “Near infrared spectroscopy and aquaphotomics: Novel approach for rapid in vivo diagnosis of virus infected soybean.” Biochemical and biophysical research communications 397 (4):685-690.