A biosensor was developed using a magnetic focusing optical waveguide (glass tubular probe) for the detection of glucuronidase (GUS) from Escherichia coli based on immunomagnetic separation and chemiluminescent measurement. The magnetic focusing resulted in a lower chemiluminescent signal than that obtained without magnetic-focusing, mainly due to the diffusion of the chemiluminescent reaction ...

The GUS gene of E. coli, encoding b-glucuronidase, has been widely used as a reporter gene in plant transformation. However, b-glucuronidase activity in transgenic wheat leaf or root tissue is rarely observed or reported. To address this question, we investigated three wheat lines transformed with the GUS reporter gene. We found all three lines expressed GUS mRNA as well as b-glucuronidase prot...

The 5' region of the rice actin 1 gene (Act l ) has been developed as an efficient regulator of foreign gene expression in transgenic rice plants. To determine the pattern and level of rice Actl 5' region activity, transgenic rice plants containing the Actl 5' region fused to a bacterial 8-glucuronidase (Gus) coding sequence were generated. Two independent clonal lines of transgenic rice plants...

Investigations were conducted to determine whether induction of PR-1a gene promoter was correlated with systemic resistance, induced by rhizobacteria, against wildfire disease of tobacco. Ten different strains of plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR), including the species Bacillus pumilus, Serratia marcescens, Pseudomonas fluorescens, P. putida, Curtobacterium flaccumfaciens, and Bukhold...

The primary 2A/2B polyprotein cleavage of aphtho-and cardioviruses is mediated by their 2A proteins cleaving C-terminally. Whilst the aphthovirus 2A region is only 16 aa (possibly 18 aa) long, the cardiovirus 2A protein is some 150 aa. We have previously shown that foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) 2A is able to mediate cleavage in an artificial (chloramphenicol acetyltransferase/FMDV 2A/beta...

Artemisia annua L. produces small amounts of the sesquiterpenoid artemisinin, which is used for treatment of malaria. A worldwide shortage of the drug has led to intense research to increase the yield of artemisinin in the plant. In order to study the regulation of expression of a key enzyme of artemisinin biosynthesis, the promoter region of the key enzyme amorpha-4,11-diene synthase (ADS) was...

BACKGROUND Plant cell suspensions and hairy root cultures represent scalable protein expression platforms. Low protein product titers have thus far limited the application of transient protein expression in these hosts. The objective of this work was to overcome this limitation by harnessing A. tumefaciens to deliver replicating and non-replicating RNA viral vectors in plant tissue co-cultures....

Multiple synonymous substitution mutations in the Wheat streak mosaic virus P3 cistron did not affect translation in vitro but rendered the virus incapable of systemic infection. Multiple synonymous substitutions in the cylindrical inclusion cistron did not alter infectivity or in vitro translation. To assess replication and movement phenotypes, P3 mutations were placed in context with a GUS re...

We have demonstrated that an 8.4 kb segment (GUS(8.4)) from the upstream region of the mouse alpha-gustducin gene acts as a fully functional promoter to target lacZ transgene expression to the gustducin-positive subset of taste receptor cells (TRCs). The GUS(8. 4) promoter drove TRC expression of the beta-galactosidase marker at high levels and in a developmentally appropriate pattern. The gust...