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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America logoLink to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
. 1975 Jul;72(7):2748–2752. doi: 10.1073/pnas.72.7.2748

On the question of the integration of exogenous bacterial DNA into plant DNA.

A Kleinhofs, F C Eden, M D Chilton, A J Bendich
PMCID: PMC432848  PMID: 809769

Abstract

Extensive studies with pea, tomato, and barley failed to confirm the evidence presented by previous investigators for integration or replication of exogenously applied bacterial DNA in these plants. Labeled DNA of buoyant density in CsCl intermediate between that of high density donor bacterial DNA and of plant DNA was never observed with axenic plants. Intermediate peaks, similar to those used as evidence for recombination by earlier investigators, were observed only when the plants were contaminated with bacteria. Plant DNA prepared by a published procedure [Ledoux, L. & Huart, R. (1969) J. Mol. Biol. 43, 243-262] was found to be contaminated with unidentified impurities. Such DNA was partially protected from the action of DNase and produced aberrant banding patterns in CsCl after shearing. Much of the published evidence for integration of foreign DNA in plants is based upon experiments with plant DNA prepared by this procedure. We conclude that contamination is the likely explanation for what has been interpreted as evidence for integration.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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