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''Nicotiana benthamiana'' is a close relative of tobacco and species of ''Nicotiana'' indigenous to Australia. The herbaceous plant is found amongst rocks on hills and cliffs throughout the northern regions of Australia. Variable in height and habit, the species may be erect and up to 1.5 metres or sprawling out no taller than 200 millimetres. The flowers are white.〔Spooner. FloraBase〕 The plant was used by peoples of Australia as a stimulant - it contains nicotine and other alkaloids - before the introduction of commercial tobacco (''N.tabacum'' and ''N.rustica''). The indigenous names for it include ''tjuntiwari'' and ''muntju''. It was first collected on the north coast of Australia by Benjamin Bynoe on a voyage of the HMS ''Beagle'' in 1837.〔Patton, J. ''(How Owensboro tobacco grew a possible miracle drug to treat Ebola'' ) August 9, 2014.〕 A synonym for this species is ''Nicotiana suaveolens'' var. ''cordifolia'', a description given by George Bentham in ''Flora Australiensis'' in 1868. This was transferred to ''Nicotiana benthamiana'' by Karel Domin in ''Bibliotheca Botanica'' (1929), retaining the author's name in the specific epithet.〔APNI id: 22952, 39749〕 ''N. benthamiana'' is considered by a growing scientific community as a model organism for performing plant research. For example, the leaves are rather frail and can be injured in experiments to study ethylene synthesis. Ethylene is a plant hormone which is secreted, among other situations, after injuries. Using gas chromatography, the quantity of ethylene they emitted can also easily be measured. Due to the large number of plant pathogens able to infect it, ''N. benthamiana'' is widely used in the field of plant virology. It is also an excellent target plant for agroinfiltration and a platform for industrial production of recombinant pharmaceutical proteins, including monoclonal antibodies.〔 == References == * * * 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Nicotiana benthamiana」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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