DNA content of microorganisms
bl275 at cleveland.Freenet.Edu
Fri Apr 30 10:20:24 EST 1993
In a previous article, pra1 at mbuf.bio.cam.ac.uk (Peter Alefounder) says:
> Does anyone know of a published list of the DNA content of various
>microorganisms? I am looking for the best way to get a large quantity
>of labelled DNA and so would like something to convert CO2 + NH3 or
>other simple starting materials into the maximum amount of DNA.
>Alternatively, some way to boost the percentage of DNA in E. coli would
>be useful. Plasmid copy numbers do not appear to be high enough to make
>a significant difference; I think the same is true for most phages. A
>phage that makes modified DNA would not be of any use for my purpose.
If the plasmid has a high enough copy number, the amount of plasmid DNA in
a cell can approach or exceeed that of a copy of the genome. Of course, a
typical eubacterium has multiple copies of its genome during logarithmic
growth, but the point is that there are instances in which episomal DNA can
constitute a healthy percantage of the cellular DNA.
Dan Diaz bl275 at cleveland.freenet.edu 'Querer es poder'
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