Vegetative tissue, sterilization

To investigate the intrinsic GUS levels of plants, extracts were prepared from sterile vegetative tissues and seeds and assayed for beta-glucuronidase activity, initially by using the convenient spectrophotometric assays employing p-nitrophenol, and later with extremely sensitive fluorometric methods. In no case was any significant beta-glucuronidase activity found. Plants assayed included tobacco, potato, Brassica napus. Petunia hybrida, tomato, wheat, barley, maize, and Arabidopsis thaliana. Reconstruction experiments with purified GUS added to tobacco and potato extracts indicated that there were no intrinsic inhibitors present in the extracts that would pose a potential problem for... 

Virus-Indexed Plants. Production of disease-free stock of potatoes and bananas has always been a challenge. The ability to produce commercial quantities of plant starts from a small amount of sterilized tissue greatly reduces the spread of viruses and other pathogens in these vegetatively propagated crops. 

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