Cloning and sequence analysis of Actin gene fragment of Microula sikkimensis

Total RNA of Microula sikkimensis was extracted from leaf. The actin gene fragment was amplified by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction RTPCR and then cloned into pGEMT vector. The gene fragment was sequenced after identifying the positive clone by PCR. The results revealed that the actin gene fragment from M. sikkimensis contains 599 bp and encodes a protein of 199 amino acids. Similarity comparison with other actin gene sequence in the GenBank showed that it shared over 84% of nucleotide sequence similarity and over 95% of amino acid sequence similarity with other actin, which suggests that actin gene of M. sikkimensis was highly conservative.