Fluorescence-activated nucleolus sorting in Arabidopsis

Abstract

Nucleolar isolation allows exhaustive characterization of the nucleolar content. Centrifugation-based protocols are not adapted to isolation of nucleoli directly from a plant tissue because of copurification of cellular debris. We describe here a method that allows the purification of nucleoli using fluorescent-activated cell sorting from Arabidopsis thaliana leaves. This approach requires the expression of a specific nucleolar protein such as fibrillarin fused to green fluorescent protein in planta .