Protocols
To ensure that our experiments went as smoothly and efficiently as possible, we followed tried and tested protocols.
Competent Cell Protocol
Produces chemically competent cells
IMPORTANT: Pre-cool all the buffers and tubes that you use to 4ºC – This
will take many hours in a fridge, over an hour on ice, the fastest is to use an
ice/water slurry.
1. Take a single colony from an LB agar plate, inoculate in 5 ml of LB broth
and incubate for overnight, 200 rpm at 370C.
2. Dilute 200 µL of culture in 100 ml of LB broth and incubate with shaking
until the culture reaches an OD value of 0.30-0.35. You can make
larger volumes if you like.
3. Keep the culture on in ice/water bath for 30 min, mixing every now and
again to ensure even cooling. Make sure the culture never warms
above 4ºC from this point on.
4.Transfer to pre-cooled centrifuge tubes and centrifuge at 3000 rpm at 40C
for 10 min.
5. Remove the supernatant, then resuspend the bacteria in 10 ml of 100 mM
CaCl2, mix well and incubate for 30 min on ice.
6. Centrifuge at 3000 rpm at 40C for 10 min. Discard the supernatant, then
add 10 ml of 100 mM MgCl2, mix then incubate for 30 min on ice.
7. Centrifuge at 3000 rpm at 40C for 10 min and add 2 ml CaCl2 with 10%
glycerol, resuspend bacteria.
8. Transfer 50 µL of culture into pre-cooled 1.5mL eppendorf tubes (on ice,
or do this in the cold room). Snap freeze cells in liquid nitrogen and
transfer to -80 freezer.
Chemical transformation
Puts your plasmid into cells
1. Take chemically competent cells (-80C freezer) and thaw on ice/water mix.
2. Add plasmid DNA to 50uL of competent cells: for minipreps 0.5-1 uL of DNA is enough, for ligations, use 5-10 uL. Mix thoroughly.
3. Leave on ice for 30-45 minutes. Turn on the waterbath set to 42C, so it reaches the target temperature over this time.
4. Heat shock the cells at 42C for 30 seconds. This will create pores in the competent cells through which the plasmid can enter into the cell.
5. Put back on ice for 2 minutes. This allows the cell to recover and begin repairing the pores, preventing cell death.
6. Add 950uL of growth media (e.g. SOC, LB, etc.) bringing the volume up to ~1000uL
7. Incubate with shaking at 37C for 45-60 minutes.
8. Plate 200uL on appropriate antibiotic: If using a ligation (or anything likely to have low efficiency) centrifuge the cells first at 8000rpm for 2 minutes and resuspend in 200uL of media then plate everything. If there are still some cells left after plating, the rest can be kept up to 3 weeks in a 4 degree fridge.
9. Incubate overnight at 37C.
Ethanol Precipitation Protocol
Simple method for gel extraction
Ethanol Precipitation of DNA Reagents Needed:
• 3 M sodium acetate pH 5.2 or 5 M ammonium acetate
• DNA
• 100% ethanol
Extracting gel
After running a gel and identifying the band that contains the DNA that you wish to extract, simply use a scalpel to cut around the band leaving as little excess agarose gel as possible.
Protocol
1. Measure the volume of the DNA sample.
2. Add 1/10 volume of sodium acetate, pH 5.2, (final concentration of 0.3 M) - These amounts assume that the DNA is in TE only; if DNA is in a solution containing salt, adjust salt accordingly to achieve the correct final concentration.
3. Mix well.
4. Add 2 to 2.5 volumes of cold 100% ethanol (calculated after salt addition).
5. Mix well.
6. Place on ice or at -20 degrees C for >20 minutes.
7. Spin a maximum speed in a microfuge 10-15 min.
8. Carefully decant supernatant.
9. Add 1 ml 70% ethanol. Mix. Spin briefly. Carefully decant supernatant.
10. Air dry or briefly vacuum dry pellet.
11. Resuspend pellet in the appropriate volume of TE or water.