AMPLIFICATION OF AZOSPIRILLUM SP. JG3 GLPD GENE FRAGMENT USING DEGENERATE PRIMERS GENERATED BY WEB-BASED TOOLS

Abstract

Primaclade and In Silico web-based tools were used as a strategy to obtain the correct-size PCR amplicon targeting a fragment of gene encoding glycerol-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (glpD) of Azospirillum sp. JG3. The bacterial strains are soil, Gram-negative PGPR (Plant-Growth Promoting Rhizobacteria) isolated from an agricultural land in Purwokerto, Central Java, Indonesia, which have ability to produce several commercial enzymes. The aim is to obtain a pair of reliable degenerate primers from a limited number of glpD sequences from other Azospirilla retrieved in GenBank using bioinformatics approach. We demonstrated degenerate primer design that led to successful PCR amplification corresponding to the targeted DNA fragment. Homology analysis showed that the obtained DNA fragment is 61% and 99% similar to sn-glycerol-3-phosphate dehydrogenase genes of Azospirillum brasilense and Stenotrophomonas maltophili respectively.