Improved Extraction of Abscisic Acid From Plant Tissue

Abstract

Methods have been developed for the extraction of abscisic acid (ABA) from plant tissues using water as the extracting solvent. Abnormally high levels of ABA were extracted with water at room temperature from some tissues. This was attributed to enzymic hydrolysis of conjugated forms of ABA. This problem was overcome by briefly boiling the plant tissue in water before homogenisation. Subsequent analysis of ABA was by combined gas chromatography/mass spectrometry using deuterium-labelled ABA as an internal standard but it is suggested that the method may be particularly suited to assay procedures based on immunological techniques where solvent residues may be undesirable.