DNA Sequencing Used to Illustrate Mutations and Evolution

 

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

Tested Studies in Laboratory Teaching, 2001, Volume 22

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)