Team:Edinburgh/Basic Part

Basic Parts




Materials

  • 1g Agarose
  • 100ml 1X TAE buffer
  • 5µl GelRed stain

Procedure

  • 1. Mix the agarose with the 1X TAE buffer in a flask.
  • 2. Heat the mixture until all the agarose is dissolved.
  • 3. Swirl the flask under cold running water to cool the mixture.
  • 4. Add the gel stain.
  • 5. Pour into an assembled gel tray and let it cool.

Materials

  • 1% Agarose
  • 1X TAE buffer
  • 5X loading dye
  • DNA ladder
  • DNA samples

Procedure

  • 1. Place gel tray into the electrophoresis apparatus.
  • 2. Pour 1X TAE so that the gel is covered by buffer.
  • 3. Prepare the samples by adding the appropriate amount of loading dye.
  • 4. Load samples and DNA ladder into wells on the gel.
  • 5. Run the gel at roughly 100V for around an hour

Materials

  • 10ml Luria Broth (LB)
  • 10µl Specific Antibiotic at 1000x (Chloramphenicol, Ampicillin or Kanamycin)
  • Loop (for picking colony)
  • Ethanol

Procedure

  • 1. Pour 10ml of LB into a 50ml Falcon tube.
  • 2. Pipette 10µl of antibiotic into the broth.
  • 3. Dip loop in ethanol and flame to sterilise. Once it is cool, pick colony and transfer to a 50ml Falcon tube.
  • 4. Incubate at 37°C overnight in a shaking incubator.

Materials

  • Buffer QG
  • 10µl 3M sodium acetate
  • Isopropanol
  • 750µl Buffer PE
  • 25µl Buffer EB

Procedure

All centrifuge steps are carried out at 13,000 rpm.
  • 1. Excise the region of gel containing the DNA fragment using a scalpel. Cut close to the DNA to minimise the gel volume.
  • 2. Place the gel slice in a 1.5ml tube and weigh it. Record the volume of the gel.
  • 3. Add 300µl of Buffer QG for each 100mg of gel.
  • 4. Incubate at 50°C for 10 minutes or until the gel has completely dissolved. Mix by vortexing the tube every 2 minutes during the incubation.
  • 5. Once the gel is completely dissolved, the mixture should be yellow. If the mixture is orange or violet add 10 µl of 3M sodium acetate and mix until it turns yellow. Yellow colour indicates the solution is the optimum pH for DNA binding to the QIAquick membrane.
  • 6. Add 1 gel volume of isopropanol to the solution and mix (1:1 volumes of isopropanol to gel slice).
  • 7. Place a QIAquick spin column in a 2ml collection tube.
  • 8. Pipette the sample onto the QIAquick column and centrifuge. Discard flow-through.
  • 9. Place column back in same collection tube. Add 500µl of Buffer QG to the column and centrifuge for 1 minute to remove all traces of agarose.
  • 10. Wash column by adding 750µl buffer PE. Let it stand for 2-5 min and then centrifuge for 1 minute.
  • 11. Discard the flow-through. Centrifuge for 1 minute to remove the residual buffer PE.
  • 12. Then place the column in a clean, labelled 1.5ml Eppendorf tube.
  • 13. To elute the DNA, add 25µl of Buffer EB to the centre of the column membrane, let it stand for 1 minute and then centrifuge for 1 minute.
  • 14. Using a pipette, transfer the flow-through back into the centre of the column. Let it stand for 1 minute and then centrifuge for 1 minute. The DNA will now be in the flow-through.