‘Empty’ minicircles and petB/atpA and psbD/psbE (cytb559 α) genes in tandem in Amphidinium carterae plastid DNA11The sequences reported in this paper have been deposited in the EMBL data base under numbers AJ311628–AJ311633, AJ307009–AJ3079016 and AJ318067.

AbstractAmphidinium carterae minicircle chloroplast DNA was separated from total DNA by centrifugation through a sucrose/NaCl gradient. Sequences of minicircles with psbA and 23S rRNA contained a common region of 67 bp. Primers designed from this generated numerous polymerase chain reaction products of 1.5–2.6 kb. These contained psaA and psaB as one gene/circle, and petB/atpA and psbD/psbE as two genes/circle. ‘Empty’ minicircles of 1.7–2.5 kb containing no identifiable genes or parts of genes were more abundant than gene-containing circles. From 15 minicircles a minimum common region of 48 bp was identified, with little identity to that from other dinoflagellate minicircles