IMC Fondazione ONLUS - Centro Marino Internazionale | UP
Molecular Biology
The Molecular Biology Groups main activity is the genetic “fingerprinting” of various marine organisms. A prerequisite to deal with a wide range of problems related to the marine environment is the ability to discriminate among marine animals. For this reason it's important to provide improved methodology for genetic identification of marine species through the application of advanced molecular genetic methods. The final goal is to build up a database of mitochondrial DNA sequences for a wide variety of marine species, which will have considerable added value in terms of:
Identification of a sea organism in every developmental stage (egg, larvae)
Revelation of phylogenetic relationships
Genetic characterization of marine organisms
Biodiversity studies
Authentication of species in processed sea food products
Uncovering sea food adulteration and mislabeling
Methods
literature review: extensive study of literature and already existing information in various
databases to identify gaps and missing data
field activities: sample collection and tissue preservation;
laboratory work: nucleic acid isolation; primer selection and PCR reactions set up;
sequencing
data analysis: evaluation of sequenced data and introduction in international databases (EMBL/GENBANK)
Instruments
The laboratory is equipped with thermocyclers, electrophoresis apparatuses combined with a gel documentation video system, spectrophotometer, microscopes, high speed centrifuge, freezer -80°C, laminar flow hood.
