FIGURE 2.
tRNA expression by different mimivirus strains. Cells of A. castellanii were plated in 24-well plates (1 × 105 cells per well), infected for 8 h with different mimivirus strains in different culture medium, subjected to total RNA extraction, and reverse transcription and the resulting cDNA was used as a template for quantitative PCR. (A) Histidyl-tRNA. (B) Cysteinyl-tRNA. (C) Leucyl-tRNA. (D) Tryptophanyl-tRNA. The quantitative PCR results were expressed in arbitrary units, fitted to a standard curve, normalized to levels of the constitutive amoebal 18S rDNA gene and presented as the mean ± SD from a representative experiment conducted in duplicate. The values were subjected in different combinations to one-way ANOVA tests and Bonferroni post-tests (95% confidence intervals). Differences between groups were considered significant when the p-values were smaller than 0.05. ∗∗p < 0.01; ∗∗∗p < 0.001.