The β-Glucuronidase (gus) Reporter Gene System Gene: Fusions; Spectrophotometric, Fluorometric, and Histochemical Detection

In 1987, Richard Jefferson et al. (1) demonstrated the application of a new reporter gene system in transgenic plants. The reporter gene was the uidA gene of Escherichia coli that encodes the enzyme β-glucuronidase (GUS). Since then, the uidA gene (commonly referred to as the gus gene) has become one of the most widely used reporter genes in plant molecular biology. (For a detailed description of the gus gene, see Chapter 1 .)