Mitochondrial deoxyribonucleic acid from Tetrahymena pyriformis and its kinetic complexity.
1. Mitochondrial DNA from Tetrahymena pyriformis strain T has a buoyant density (rho) of 1.685 compared with rho1.688 for whole cell DNA. Mitochondrial preparations from T. pyriformis strain W show an enrichment of a light satellite (rho1.686), although this is not obtained free from nuclear DNA (rho1.692). 2. T. pyriformis mitochondrial DNA renatures rapidly and the kinetics of this process indicate a complexity of approx. 3x10(7) daltons. 3. The base-pairing in the renaturation product is of a precise nature, since the ;melting' temperature (80.5 degrees C) is indistinguishable from that of the native DNA (80.5 degrees C). 4. Centrifugation of mitochondrial DNA in an alkaline caesium chloride density gradient gives two bands, implying the separation of the complementary strands.
D002499:Centrifugation, Density Gradient; D002845:Chromatography; D004247:DNA / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D006358:Hot Temperature; D007700:Kinetics; D008928:Mitochondria / Q000032:analysis*; D013768:Tetrahymena / Q000032:analysis*
D004247:DNA