Mageveekäsna Ephydatia fluviatilis populatsiooni geneetiline analüüs
Intragenomic Profiling Using Multicopy Genes: The rDNA
Internal Transcribed Spacer Sequences of the Freshwater
Sponge Ephydatia fluviatilis
Liisi Karlep, To~nu Reintamm, Merike Kelve*
Department of Gene Technology, Tallinn University of Technology, Tallinn, Estonia
Abstract
Multicopy genes, like ribosomal RNA genes (rDNA), are widely used to describe and distinguish individuals. Despite
concerted evolution that homogenizes a large number of rDNA gene copies, the presence of different gene variants within
a genome has been reported. Characterization of an organism by defining every single variant of tens to thousands of rDNA
repeat units present in a eukaryotic genome would be quite unreasonable. Here we provide an alternative approach for the
characterization of a set of internal transcribed spacer sequences found within every rDNA repeat unit by implementing
direct sequencing methodology