DNA Sequencing Used to Illustrate Mutations and Evolution

 

Theodore Gurney, Jr., Russell LeMon, and Kathleen Nolan

Tested Studies in Laboratory Teaching, 2001, Volume 22

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Abstract

This workshop, which is half wet lab and half Internet lab, uses DNA sequences to examine the relatedness of different species. DNA from several insect and/or fish species are compared. This chapter includes instructions for extracting DNA from gels and making PCR products. We prepare PCR products to send to a computerized automated sequencing facility. (No radioisotopes are used in this sequencing!) We recover sequence from the facility over the Web as four-color graphics on a computer screen and as text. We make pair-wise DNA sequence comparisons between species with BLAST2 and multi-species comparisons with MultAlin. We see substitutions, insertions, and deletions. Then we make a distance-based evolutionary tree with GeneBee.

Keywords:  evolution, PCR, mutation, DNA sequencing, systematics, bioinformatics

Clemson University (2000)

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