ABSTRACT
An indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for quantitative analysis of abscisic acid (ABA) in wheat grain has been developed. With this sensitive assay +ABA amounts as low as 5 pg can be detected. The accuracy of the immunoassay was compared with high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) analysis of ABA and similar results were achieved with each method. Good recovery of ABA added to wheat extracts was obtained. Optimum methods of ABA extraction from wheat tissue have been investigated. An extraction procedure has been determined that yields the maximum amount of ABA from wheat grain and that yields samples that do not interfere with the immunoassay. With this immunoassay method it is now possible to efficiently measure ABA levels in large numbers of wheat grain samples, even if only small amounts of tissue are available.
