Figure 1

Agarose gel electrophoresis of PCR products. (A) Agarose gel electrophoresis of PCR products obtained by using four different primer sets in one of the examined semen samples. Lane M: 100-bp marker (Invitrogen, USA); lane 1: 380-bp PCR product (primers 4977F and 4977Rc); lane 2: 454-bp PCR product (primers 4977F and 4977R); lane 3: 524-bp PCR product (primers 4977F and 4977RK2); lane 4: 719-bp PCR product (primers 4977F and 4977RK3). Equal amount of each PCR reaction has been loaded to lanes 1 to 4. (B) Agarose gel electrophoresis of PCR products amplified from three different samples (1–3) with primers 4977F/4977Rc (lanes 1a, 2a, 3a) or 4977Fx/4977Rcx (lanes 1b, 2b, 3b). Lane M: 100-bp marker (Invitrogen, USA). Amplification with primers 4977F/4977Rc gave two products: a 380 bp band corresponding to ΔmtDNA4977 molecules (lanes 1a and 2a) and a ~470 bp band proved to be a by-product (lanes 2a and 2b). Specially designed primers 4977Fx/4977Rcx failed to produce the ~470 bp by-product (lanes 2b and 3b).