Altered restriction patterns of microwave irradiated lambdaphage DNA

Narasimhan V, Huh WK

Biochem Int 25(2):363-370, 1991

Samples of lambdaphage DNA exposed to short pulses of microwave irradiation were subjected to restriction fragmentation by Eco RI and Bam HI. Eco RI digests of microwaved DNA samples yielded three additional fragments ranging in base pair lengths between 24,226 and 7,421 besides the six expected fragments.

While Bam HI digests of the microwaved samples did not yield any additional fragments, mobilities of the Bam HI fragments from the microwaved DNA samples were slower and the bands were broader in comparison to those from native samples.

We attribute these altered restriction patterns to the conformational anomolies in DNA resulting from single strand breaks and localized strand separations induced by microwave irradiation.