Occurrence of the gene for the large subunit of ribulose-1,-5-bisphosphate carboxylase in several mutants of Euglena gracilis

Abstract

We hybridized a 887 bp chloroplast DNA fragment from Chlamydomonas carrying part of the large subunit (LSU) gene of ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (RuBisCO) to DNA extracted from various Euglena strains. The hybridization patterns observed with several restriction enzyme analyses of Euglena chloroplast DNA are in agreement with the known localization of the Euglena LSU gene (Stiegler et al., Nucleic Acids Res., 10 (1982) 3427). We obtained hybrids with DNA from four wild-type strains and six mutants in which we had characterized RuBisCO. No hybrid was observed with DNA from mutants Y₃BUD, W₃BUL and W₃₄ZUD in which no RuBisCO was detected, suggesting that the LSU gene is either strongly modified or absent in these mutants.