Application of a rapid gel method to the sequencing of fragments of 16S ribosomal RNA from Escherichia coli.

A gel sequencing method has been applied to two 5' end-labelled fragments of the 16S ribosomal RNA from E. coli. The procedure involves partial enzymatic hydrolysis by ribonucleases T1, U2 or A, in order to generate series of end-labelled subfragments terminating in guanine, adenine, or pyrimidine residues, respectively. The two fragments concerned were approximately 75 and 90 nucleotides in length, and both arose from the 3' region of the 16S RNA. The sequences deduced are compared with the published sequence of 16S RNA, and contribute information to the final ordering of the ribonuclease T1 oligonucleotides in the latter, as well as revealing some probable errors.