• Korean Journal of Plant Tissue Culture
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.165-171
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• 2001

New visible and fast assay system have been developed for tobacco transformant introduced with adenosine deaminase (ADA) marker gene, which converts cytotoxic adenosine analogues to non-toxic inosine analogues and ammonia. Ammonia was changed to blue color in the solution of phenol-nitoprusside and alkaline-hypochlorite. It was possible to detect activity of ADA visibly on the holes of 96 well plate using tiny explant of transgenic tobacco leaves within 1 hour incubation time. As substrates of ADA enzyme from transgenic plant on the plate, a number of adenosine analogues such as 9-D-arabinofuranosyl adenine, cordycepin, 2'-deoxyadenosine, adenosine and xylofuranosyl adenine were possible for detection of ADA activity. Optimal condition of substrate for ADA enzyme was each 10 mM and pH 7.5 in adenosine solution. Especially, transgenic plant did not convert adenosine to inosine and ammonia in the presence of ADA inhibitor deoxycoformycin, which means that ammonia produced from transgenic plant is due to expression of ADA gene. Now, we show that this detection system can be easily, sensitively, fast and cheaply as well as visibly assayed in vitro as GUS gene system with very small size of transformant explant.