Methods of plant hormone analysis

Abstract

The development of sensitive analytical methods1 for determining hormone levels in plant tissues is essential for elucidating the role and function of plant hormones in growth and development. During the last decade the trend has been to use mass spectrometry as one of the principal tools in plant hormone analysis, thereby increasing the quality of the analyses dramatically. The development of user-friendly bench-top mass spectrometers has revolutionized analytical chemistry, enabling many laboratories to switch from fairly unspecific bioassays and immunoassays to a methodology that can be both sensitive and accurate. Analysis of plant hormones is an essential component of studies of plant development, so the demands made on the methods used will often be linked to the questions asked by developmental biologists.