RNA in wheat - (May/29/2007 )

Hello. I need some information about RNA in wheat. Is anyone know how large should be mRNA?? and what kind of a view I should expecta after an electroforesis. I'll be gratefull for help.
Best regards
Elisabeta

Hi

I don't know the size of mRNA in wheat, but in general the mRNA will be the size that it needs to be to produce a protein. By this I mean that mRNA can range in size from a few bases for uncompleted transcripts to several thousand bases for large proteins such as cytoskeletal components and transmembrane transporters. Typically when run on a gel you will get several bands appearing, the two brightest of which are the 28s and 18s ribosomal RNA, there will be others corresponding to other ribosomal RNA sizes, but they are fainter and often not visible at all. The mRNA will appear as a smear low down on the gel, probably brightest between 400-1000 bp, if you can see it at all. Often you will only see the 28 and 18s bands, but there will still be enough mRNA there to be able to convert to cDNA and amplify most genes. Check out Sambrook, Fristch and Maniatis, "Molecular Cloning: A Laboratory Manual" for more details