Abstract
The Asiatic black bear ( Ursus thibetanus ) is a class II protected species in China whose genome is not well characterized. All mammalian genomes have a high proportion of repetitive sequences; thus, studying the repetitive sequences of the Asiatic black bear can provide new insight into the organization of its genome. It is well known that cot-1 DNA is enriched for repetitive DNA elements with high and moderately high copy numbers within the genome. In this small-scale study, cot-1 DNA from U. thibetanus was first isolated and characterized using DNA reassociation kinetics, then a Southern blotting probe was used to indicate the presence of polymorphic repetitive DNA families in this species. Analysis of homologous sequences by online database searches revealed that the obtained fragments contained satellite sequences, mitochondrial DNA, retrotransposons, DNA transposons, and unclassified fragments whose deduced amino acid sequences has significant relationships to known proteins. The data produced by this study may lead to more research into repetitive DNAs. Key words : Asiatic black bear, cot-1 DNA, repetitive elements, southern blotting
Highlights
The Asiatic black bear (Ursus thibetanus) is a mediumsized bear that is distributed throughout southern and eastern Asia (Servheen, 1990)
A distinct pattern of bands was observed when Asiatic black bear genomic DNA was digested with BamH I, Hifi I, or Alu I, but no distinct pattern was found after digesting with HaeIII (Figure 1)
Our results indicate the presence of polymorphic repetitive DNA families found when the genomic DNA was digested by HaeIII, a pattern may be detectable after subcloning, as discussed by Leung (Leung, 1999)
Summary
The Asiatic black bear (Ursus thibetanus) is a mediumsized bear that is distributed throughout southern and eastern Asia (Servheen, 1990). It is a class II protected species in China because of its declining population due to overhunting, extensive deforestation, and destruction of habitat (Ma and XU, 1998). No information on repetitive DNA in the Asiatic black bear genome is currently available. The isolation and characterization of the repetitive DNA may provide useful information for studying the U. thibetanus genome
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