Figure 3: Isolation of the full-length zeta-carotene desaturase cDNA from Ficus carica. Agarose gels (1%) stained with ethidium bromide show RT-PCR amplified products: A) Internal zds-Fc cDNA fragment of 567 bp, amplified with primers ZDS DegF and ZDS DegR; B) DNA fragment of 727 bp, corresponding to the 5´-end of the zds-Fc cDNA, obtained by 5´-RACE; C) The 1318 bp cDNA fragment amplified by 3´-RACE, corresponding to the 3´-coding region of zds-Fc; D) A DNA fragment of 2131 bp, spanning the complete open reading frame of the zds-Fc gene from Ficus carica. E) Diagram of the strategy used to construct the full-length coding region of Ficus carica zds-Fc (1746 bp), indicating the length of the PCR-amplified fragments and the PCR primers used.