ESTABLISHMENT OF REAL-TIME PCR FOR ANALYZING mRNA ABUNDANCE IN CHLORELLA VULGARIS EXPOSED TO XENOBIOTICS

Among the aquatic organisms,algae are one of the most susceptible organisms to pollution in water.Transcriptional abundance has been gradually used as a surrogate for gene expression in environmental biology.In the present study,real-time PCR assay was established to quantify the transcript abundances of three photosystem genes(psaB,psbC and rbcL) in Chlorella vulgaris,and the acute toxicity of three herbicides(glufosinate,atrazine and diclofop-methyl) was assessed using this method.The results demonstrated that real-time PCR is an efficient technique to assess the toxicity of xenobiotic compounds in aquatic system.