Genetics and Molecular Biology (Dec 2005)

Genome size of three Brazilian flies from the Sciaridae family

  • Cecília Ferreira Saccuti,
  • Maria Albertina de Miranda Soares,
  • José Ricardo Penteado Falco,
  • Maria Aparecida Fernandez

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1590/S1415-47572005000500015
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 28, no. 4
pp. 743 – 748

Abstract

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We determined the genome size of the Brazilian sciarid flies Bradysia hygida, Rhynchosciara americana and Trichosia pubescens (Diptera: Sciaridae) using absorbance measurements of Feulgen-stained nuclei belonging to these species (and chicken erythrocytes as a standard) to calculate the amount of DNA in picograms (pg) and the number of base pairs (bp), or C-value, for each of these species. The C-values were: 3 x 10(8) bp (0.31 pg) for B. hygida; 3.6 x 10(8) bp (0.37 pg) for R. americana; and 1 x 10(9) bp (1.03 pg) for T. pubescens. The sciarids investigated in this work had considerably higher C-values than the average for previously described dipteran species, including D. melanogaster.

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