Lake Bonney is one of several permanently ice-covered lakes in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica, which maintain the only year-round biological activity on the Antarctic continent. Vertically stratified populations of autotrophic microorganisms occupying the water columns are adapted to numerous extreme conditions, including very low light, hypersalinity, ultra-oligotrophy and low temperature...

DNA barcoding is a novel molecular identification method that aids in identifying traditional Chinese materia medica using traditional identification techniques. However, further study is needed to assess the stability and accuracy of DNA barcoding. Flos Lonicerae Japonicae, a typical medicinal flower, is widely used in China, Korea, and other Southeast Asian countries. However, Flos Lonicerae ...

We describe the use of a method called differential expression using customized amplification library (DECAL) to study the global changes in gene expression in iron-deficient versus iron-reconstituting cells of Synechocystis sp. strain PCC 6803. We identified a number of genes, such as isiA, idiA, psbA, cpcG, and slr0374, whose expression either increased or decreased in response to iron availa...

Melilotus is an important genus of legume plants and an herbage with excellent nitrogen fixation; it can tolerate extreme environmental conditions and possesses important medicinal value. However, there is limited genetic information about the genus; thus, we analysed four chloroplast loci (rbcL, matK, psbA-trnH and trnL-F) and one nuclear region (ITS) to determine the genetic diversity of 199 ...

The 32-kDa photosystem II protein of the chloroplast is thought to be a target molecule for the herbicide atrazine. The psbA gene coding for this protein was cloned from Solanum nigrum atrazine-susceptible ('S') and atrazine-resistant ('R') biotypes. The 'S' and 'R' genes are identical in nucleotide sequence except for an A to G transition, predicting a Ser to Gly change at codon 264. The same ...

BACKGROUND DNA barcoding as a tool for species identification has been successful in animals and other organisms, including certain groups of plants. The exploration of this new tool for species identification, particularly in tree species, is very scanty from biodiversity-rich countries like India. rbcL and matK are standard barcode loci while ITS, and trnH-psbA are considered as supplementary...

Medicinal pteridophytes are an important group used in traditional Chinese medicine; however, there is no simple and universal way to differentiate various species of this group by morphological traits. A novel technology termed "DNA barcoding" could discriminate species by a standard DNA sequence with universal primers and sufficient variation. To determine whether DNA barcoding would be effec...

BACKGROUND The chloroplast trnH-psbA spacer region has been proposed as a prime candidate for use in DNA barcoding of plants because of its high substitution rate. However, frequent inversions associated with palindromic sequences within this region have been found in multiple lineages of Angiosperms and may complicate its use as a barcode, especially if they occur within species. METHODOLOGY...