Table 2.
Summary of the average molecular lengths of individual viroid RNAs (n = 25 in all cases) imaged by AFM (shown in Suppl. Figs S1 to S9).
| Viroid RNA variant |
[Mg2+] in the folding buffer | Measured length (nm) |
ANOVA test * |
||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mean ± SD | Median | F | F crit | ||
| PSTVd-ml(+) | 0 | 43 ± 6* | 42.0 | 15.85 | 3.12 |
| 4 | 35 ± 6 | 35.0 | |||
| PSTVd-mc(+) | 4 | 35 ± 6 | 34.7 | ||
| PLMVd-ml(+)wt | 0 | 34 ± 3 | 34.3 | 63.16 | 3.12 |
| 4 | 24 ± 4* | 24.1 | |||
| PLMVd-ml(+)mut | 4 | 33 ± 4 | 33.0 | ||
| ELVd-ml(+) | 0 | 30 ± 2* | 29.6 | 11.04 | 3.12 |
| 4 | 26 ± 5 | 26.2 | |||
| ELVd-ml(-) | 4 | 25 ± 4 | 25.0 | ||
*One-way ANOVA was used to test the null hypothesis that the mean length of the three variants within each viroid species is equal. The results show that F > F crit in all cases, thus evidencing that the mean length of one of the three variants (marked with an asterisk in the ‘Mean’ column) is significantly different than those of the other two.