Various abnormal phenomena have been observed during PCR so far. The present study performed a series of consecutive PCRs (including many rounds of re-amplification continuously) and found that the abortion of re-amplification was inevitable as long as a variety of complicated product appeared. The aborting stages varied, according to the lengths of targets. Longer targets reached the abortion earlier than the shorter ones, marked by appearance of the complex that was immobile in electropho-resis. Denatured gel-electrophoresis revealed that the complex was mainly made up of shorter or partially synthesized strands, together with small amounts of full-length ones. Able to be digested by S1 nuclease but unable by restriction endonucleases (REs), the complex was proved to consist of both single regions and double-helix regions that kept the complex stable thermodynamically. Simulations gave evidence that partial strands, even at lower concentration, could disturb re-amplification effec- tively and lead to the abortion of re-amplifications finally. It was pointed out that the partial strands formed chiefly via polymerase’s infidelity, and hence the solution to lighten the abnormality was also proposed.
LUO Rui1,2 & ZHANG DaMing 1 State Key Laboratory of Systematic and Evolutionary Botany, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100093, China
Cereal genes are classified into two distinct classes according to the guanine-cytosine （GC） content at the third codon sites （GC3）. Natural selection and mutation bias have been proposed to affect the GC content. However, there has been controversy about the cause of GC variation. Here, we characterized the GC content of 1 092 paralogs and other single-copy genes in the duplicated chromosomal regions of the rice genome （ssp. indica） and classified the paralogs into GC3-rich and GC3-poor groups. By referring to out-group sequences from Arabidopsis and maize, we confirmed that the average synonymous substitution rate of the GC3-rich genes is significantly lower than that of the GC3-poor genes. Furthermore, we explored the other possible factors corresponding to the GC variation including the length of coding sequences, the number of exons in each gene, the number of genes in each family, the location of genes on chromosomes and the protein functions. Consequently, we propose that natural selection rather than mutation bias was the primary cause of the GC variation.
Xiaoli ShiXiyin WangZhe LiQihui ZhuJi YangSong GeJingchu Luo
The highly efficient novel methods to produce transgenic chickens were established by directly in-jecting the recombinant plasmid containing green fluorescent protein (GFP) gene into the cock's testis termed as testis-medianted gene transfer (TMGT), and transplanting transfected spermatogonial stem cells (TTSSCs). For the TMGT approach,four dosages of pEGFP-N1 DNA/cationic polymer complex were injected intratesticularly. The results showed: (1) 48 h after the injection,the percentages of testis cells expressing GFP were 4.0%, 8.7%, 10.2% and 13.6% in the 50, 100, 150 and 200 μg/mL group, re-spectively. The difference from the four dosage groups was significant (P<0.05). On day 25 after the injection, a dosage-dependent and time-dependent increase in the number of transgenic sperm was observed. The percentages of gene expression reached the summit and became stable from day 70 to 160, being 12.7%, 12.8%, 15.9% and 19.1%, respectively. The difference from the four dosage groups was also significant (P<0.05). (2) 70 d after the injection, strong green fluorescent could be observed in the seminiferous tubules by whole-mount in-situ hybridization. (3) 70 d after the injection, the semen was collected and used to artificially inseminate wild-type females. The blastoderms of F1 and F2 transgenic chicken expressed GFP were 56.2% (254/452) and 53.2% (275/517), respectively. The detec-tion of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) of F1 and F2 transgenic chicken blood genomic DNA showed that 56.5% (3/23) of F1 and 52.9% (9/17) of F2 were positive. Southern blot showed GFP DNA was in-serted in their genomic DNAs. (4) Frozen whole mount tissue sections of F1 and F2 transgenic chicken liver, heart, kidney and muscle showed that the rates of green fluorescent positive were between 50.0% and 66.7%. (5) With the TTSSCs method, SSCs ex vivo transfected with GFP were transplanted into recipient roosters whose endogenic SSCs had been resoluted. The donor SSCs settled and GFP ex-pression became readily detectable in the frozen whole mount
