University of Alabama, Huntsville View Institution's Website 3 articles published in JoVE Biology A PCR-based Genotyping Method to Distinguish Between Wild-type and Ornamental Varieties of Imperata cylindrica Leland J. Cseke1, Sharon M. Talley2 1Department of Biological Sciences, The University of Alabama, Huntsville, 2USDA-APHIS-PPQ, Center for Plant Health Science and Technology We provide a cost-effective and rapid molecular genotyping protocol that employs variety-specific PCR primers that target DNA sequence differences within the chloroplast trnL-F spacer region to differentiate between varieties of Imperata cylindrica (cogongrass) that cannot be distinguished by morphology alone. These varieties include the federally listed noxious weed, cogongrass and closely-related, wide-spread ornamental variety, I. cylindrica var. koenigii (Japanese blood grass). Biology Time-lapse Microscopy of Early Embryogenesis in Caenorhabditis elegans Lynn Boyd1, Connie Hajjar1, Kevin O'Connell2 1Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alabama in Huntsville, 2NIDDK-National Institutes of Health This article describes a technique for the visualization of the early events of embryogenesis in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. Biology Isolation of Translating Ribosomes Containing Peptidyl-tRNAs for Functional and Structural Analyses Nitin Shirole1, Sreeram Balasubramanian1, Charles Yanofsky2, Luis Cruz-Vera1 1Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alabama Huntsville, 2Department of Biology, Stanford University A major impediment to biochemical analyses of ribosomes containing nascent peptidyl-tRNAs has been the presence of other ribosomes in the same samples, ribosomes not involved in the translation of the specific mRNA sequence being analyzed. We developed a simple methodology to purify, exclusively, the ribosomes containing the nascent peptidyl-tRNA of interest.
