Authors

Timothy Arakawa

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1999

Abstract

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is extremely vulnerable to large deletions. These mutations seem to contribute to the physiological effects of aging as the mtDNA is increasingly exposed to free radicals generated by degenerate respiratory enzymes. The Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) and agarose gel electrophoresis are used to optimize reaction conditions necessary to amplify a 3000-4000 nucleotide pair (ntp) segment of Drosophila melanogaster mtDNA. Ten primers are designed to amplify different portions of the mitochondrial genome. The reaction conditions necessary to successfully amplify a 216 ntp DNA sequence are confirmed, and the ten primers are examined for PCR amplification compatibility.

Included in

Biology Commons

Share

COinS