BioSample

Fresh whole thallus of Roccella montagnei was sampled and total RNA isolated by a Lithium chloride based cold extraction buffer procedure. Ist and IInd strand cDNA was synthesised according to the manufacturerÕs instructions (Creator SMART cDNA library construction kit, BD Biosciences). The cDNA was then size-fractionated and directionally cloned between the 5' Sfi IA and 3' Sfi IB sites of pDNR_LIB vector. Single-pass sequencing from the 5' end of the ESTs was performed using pDNR_LIB specific forward primer in a automated sequencer (ABI 3130, Applied Biosystems). All the sequenced ESTs were screened for vector backbone contamination using the Vecscreen function. Their putative function was determined by performing the TBLASTX (nr/nt, nucleotide collection) algorithms using their default parameters.