Use of high resolution thermal denaturation approach in preliminary identification of plant DNAs

High resolution thermal denaturation (HRTD) profiles of the DNAs of six related millets, oat and rice showed several maxima and shoulders skewed towards the GC-rich side. Linear regression and correlation analyses exhibited no correlation between the repetitive DNA content/nuclear DNA content and the number of peaks, while there existed a very good correlation between delta T and repetitive DNA content/nuclear DNA content indicating that increase in repetitive DNA content has resulted in a greater sequence heterogeneity in these DNAs. In addition, specific melting characteristics of each of the eight plant DNAs were identified, which showed species specificity.