2.4 Identification of wild rat species
A 421 bp sequence of the cytochrome b (cytb ) gene in the fecal DNA was amplified using PCR to identify the rat species following a previously identified method (Verma and Singh, 2003). The PCR cycle had the following parameters: 94°C for 5 min, 35 cycles at 94°C for 30 s; 51°C for 30 s; 72°C for 30 s, and finally 72°C for 5 min.