Figure 12.
Effect of a co-incubation of BAC-SubDo-03 on the gene expression of the cytoplasmic thymidine kinase-1 (TK1) gene in sponge primmorphs. Dissociated cells from S. domuncula were allowed to form primmorphs in the absence (−) or presence of 50 μM MnCl2 (+MnCl2) as described under “Experimental Section “. After one day in culture, one set of primmorphs remained non-inoculated with BAC-SubDo-03 (−), or was incubated for three days with those Mn-oxidizing bacteria (+ SubDo-03 bacteria). Then RNA was extracted from the aggregates, and subjected to Northern blot analysis to assess/estimate the level of expression of the gene cytoplasmic thymidine kinase-1 (a cell-cycle regulated gene) and of β-tubulin (house-keeping gene). The expression level of the thymidine kinase-1 was normalized with the one of β-tubulin, as described under “Experimental Section”.