screen thousands of samples per year. Unfortunately ELISAs are not completely failsafe. Virus levels within potato tubers, which are screened by ELISA for use as seed potatoes, are normally low while the tubers are dormant. ELISA detection of viruses in these potatoes is difficult and absorbance values may fall below the set cut-off value. For this reason, seed tuber screening is performed on sprouting rather than dormant tubers. Although this results in more reliable readings than direct tuber testing, it does delay the certification of seed potatoes. Another disadvantage of an immuno-based detection method is that changes at the gene level may have an influence on the immunogenicity of the antigen to be detected. In terms of potato plant viruses, mutations within the CP gene may cause the CP to undergo conformational changes rendering antibodies produced against the previously present virus less effective. RT-PCR Reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) has become a powerful and effective method for detection of potato plant viruses within potato plant material and even dormant potatoes. Only a minute piece of plant material is required for analysis using RT-PCR. Considering the protocol described within this thesis, 0.1 g of plant material is enough for 14 500 separate reactions. During a RT-PCR specific target RNA sequences are amplified exponentially into DNA copies. For this to occur, however, the RNA of the virus must first be transcribed to DNA by means of a reverse transcriptase polymerase. This polymerase synthesizes a DNA strand using the RNA as template. This results in a DNA/RNA complex. For synthesis of a DNA strand from the RNA template only the reverse primer is required since the RNA is a single strand arranged from 5’ to 3’. Subsequently, the newly synthesized DNA strand is used as a template for traditional PCR. Different types of reverse transcriptase polymerases are available to suit different needs and reaction conditions. Reverse transcriptase enzymes commonly used include AMV RT, SuperScript III, ImProm-II, Omniscript, Sensiscript and Tth RT. At the end of the RT step the polymerase enzyme is heatactivated. It could also be that the reverse transcriptase polymerase and DNA polymerase is one and the same enzyme and that the enzyme only requires a DNA polymerase activation step after the RT step. An example of such an enzyme is Tth polymerase. This enzyme has both RNA-dependent reverse transcriptase and DNA-dependent polymerase activity. However, the active center of the