Team:Washington/Protocols
Protocols
Digest E. Coli plasmid using PmeI restriction enzyme
- 1 ug of DNA
- 5 uL of 10x NEB CutSmart buffer
- 1 uL of restriction enzyme
- Fill to 50 uL with water
- Incubate at 37 C for 15 minutes (1 hour if not using TimeSaver buffer)
- Heat inactivate at 65 C for 20 minutes
- Agarose gel purify (optional)
Salmon Sperm Transformation
- Grow a yeast overnight
- Check OD of culture. 0.5-0.6 are the preferred readings, if the reading is lower, wait for longer growth, if the reading is higher, dilute the sample.
- Spin down 10 ml of cells per transformation.
- Decant supernatant and wash with 10 ml ddH2O. Vortex to resuspend and spin down.
- Remove the supernatant.
- Resuspend cells in 300 uL .1 M LiOAc. Transfer to a 1.5 mL tube.
- Incubate at 30 C for 15 min
- Put salmon sperm DNA in boiling water for 5 minutes. Cool immediately on ice.
- Spin down cells and remove supernatant.
- Add the following in order:
- 240 uL 50% PEG
- 36 uL 1.0 M LioAc
- 10 uL salmon sperm DNA
- 34 uL DNA
- 40 uL ddH2O
- Final volume: 360 uL
50 mM Theophylline dissolved by DMSO
Replace occasionally due to possible interactions between theophylline & DMSO
- Put yeast plate to a blue light imager.
- Note differences in brightness between yeast colonies
Assay:
- Fill 96 well plate with 250 uL of cell cultures
Flow Cytometer:
- Set a bottom cutoff of 10,000 units
- Excitation: 515 nm
- Emission: 530 nm
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For commercial shellfish farmers and recreational hunters alike, marine biotoxins pose a significant threat to health and welfare. With this project, we aim to create an inexpensive and easy-to-use test kit for the detection of the shellfish toxin okadaic acid using engineered yeast strains and DNA aptamers on a paper device. We also hope that this project paves the way for a new class of biosensors capable of detecting a wide range of small molecules.