Electron transfer flavoprotein, alpha subunit (Megan Reilly)

Electron transfer flavoprotein, alpha subunit (Megan Reilly) 644031009

Flavoproteins may serve a number of biological functions, such as bioluminescence, photosynthesis, DNA repair, or apoptosis and they contain a derivative of riboflavin, the flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD). In particular, electron transferring flavoproteins consist of an alpha and a beta subunit, and I chose the gene that codes for this protein because I thought it could be a more highly conserved gene due to the presence of electron transfer flavoproteins in a wide range of organisms.

Blast

Megablast confirmed that the gene is 100% identical to a sequence within the genome of Halomicrobium mukohataei, but no other highly similar sequences are known. Blastn provided more extensive results and evidence that this particular gene does code for this protein, as seen in the comparison below of a sequence from Frankia alni str.:

Shine Dalgarno and Start Codon

The Shine-Dalgarno sequence for this gene appears to be ACGCGG and is located 13 bases upstream of the start codon. I verified that the start codon is GTG for this gene.