Jump to content

Recommended Posts

Posted

Let's say we found some unknown animal out in the wild. We are curious as to what kind of animal it is, so we take a sample of it's DNA and run it against various other creatues of similarity.

 

For instance, The Tree is trying to figure out a certain type of frog. Would it be possible to take a DNA sample and test it against other frog species to figure out what kind of frog it is?

Posted

Cost, production, availability of database to users, cost of supplies...

 

Is such a system already available to the public?

Posted
Cost, production, availability of database to users, cost of supplies...

 

Is such a system already available to the public?

 

Oh, sorry, I thought you were asking if it could be done, period, not whether the average joe could go have it done somewhere.

Posted

These things a slightly expensive, but there are becoming more and more commonplace in places like high school biology labs, where only a ten years ago, you could only find them in universities.

 

Of course, the big factor now would be time. Does Joe Somebody have the time to sequence a genome?

Posted

What devices? What program? What system? Hmm?

 

Could someone start using terminology instead of indefinite language?

Posted

Actually for simple taxonomy one usually do not use the whole genome. In fact this is atm still a bit limited for most eukaryotes and even not that common for prokarytes.

For taxonomic purposes it usally only takes a good marker that is very conseverd. Depending on application one often uses ribosomal genes or markers on mitochondria etc.

One possibility is thus to isolate your DNA, amplify conserved regions of the marker with pcr and sequence the products.

The chemicals are expensive but affordable, the most expensive stuff is the thermo-cycler (usually ~5k$ and up) for the PCR. Databases are available as well as free software for tree building. You usually need somewhat related sequences, though.

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.