Figure 2.

Response of Aleurone Cells to Increasing Amounts of RNAi, and Time Course of Induction of the RNAi Mechanism.

(A) Schemes of gene constructs. Different box shades indicate regions of the GUS gene used to create the effector construct. Arrowheads indicate the orientation of the gene or gene fragment. Numbers below the boxes represent the size (in bp) of every segment or entire gene (not drawn to scale).

(B) The reporter construct Ubi1-GUS was cobombarded with increasing amounts of effector Ubi1-GUS(RNAi). Decreasing amounts of Ubi1-Empty vector were used to maintain the DNA ratio at 1:1 ([effector + empty vector]:reporter). The curve y = −6.016ln(x) + 5.448 was fitted to the data. The inset represents relative GUS activities at different effector:reporter ratios, with 0:1 representing 100% activity.

(C) The reporter construct Ubi1-GUS was cobombarded with the Ubi1-Empty vector (open circles) or the effector construct Ubi1-GUS(RNAi) (closed circles) at a 1:1 ratio.

For (B) and (C), data points represent normalized GUS activities ± se. For (B), n = 4; for (C), n = 6.