RESEARCH

Genomic DNA was isolated from the Alternaria alternata. ITS region was amplified using universal primers and sequenced. 5.8 S gene found to be highly conserved and length found 159 bp and GC % was 44.7. In the present study the RNA secondary structure was predicted using program MulFold version 2.0 (Zuker, 1989). The predicted secondary structure for a functional 5.8S gene, with two large central loops from which four helices emerge. The DG required for formation of the secondary structure of the 5.8S gene was-39.25 kcal/mol. At the DNA level, the motif M2 harbors an EcoRI restriction site (underlined), which is highly conserved in fungi and distinguishes between fungal and angiosperm M2 motifs (Jobes and Thien, 1997) which suggest that those motifs play an important biological role in rRNA function. 1