NOTAS CIENTÍFICAS A simple and reliable method for the screening of transgenic tobacco plants (1)

(5) Abstract - Even though much improvement has been made in plant transformation methods, the screening of transgenic plants is often a laborious work. Most approaches for detecting the transgene in trans- formed plants are still time-consuming, and can be quite expensive. The objective of this study was to search for a simpler method to screen for transgenic plants. The infiltration of kanamycin (100 mg/mL) into tobacco leaves resulted in conspicuous chlorotic spots on the non-transgenic plant leaves, while no spots were seen on the leaves of transformed plants. This reaction occurred regardless of age of the tested plants, and the method has proven to be simple, fast, non-destructive, relatively cheap, and reliable. These results were com- parable to those obtained by the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification of the transgene using specific primers.