pSB74 transformants
Extensive colony growth was seen on plated transformations of pSB74 into DH5alpha and LE392 from
6/25 but none was visible on BL21 plate. Continued failure of BL21 transformation suggests that the homemade competent BL21 cells being used are somehow faulty.
PCR amplification of phsABC
- Prior to PCR, took aliquots of all primer samples and diluted them first to 100 uM as detailed below by the chart and then again to 10 uM
| Primer | phsABC_F | phsABC_R | phsAB_R | phsC_F |
| Initial Amount | 38.56 nm | 46.58 nm | 29.03 nm | 21.94 nm |
| Volume of water | 385.6 uL | 465.8 uL | 290.3 uL | 219.4 uL |
- Similarly, diluted the DNA sample to 10 ng DNA/uL. Started with 0.5 uL of miniprepped pSB74 (sample a) at 67.3 ng/uL and added 2.865 uL of water to get the desired concentration.
PCR reaction
- Added the following to each of three PCR tubes: 10 uL 5x Phusion HF buffer, 27.5 uL water, and 1 uL of dNTPs. 5 uL were added of both the forward and reverse primers (at 10 uM), as was 1 uL of the template DNA. The matching of tube numbers, template DNA, and primers was as follows:
| Tube # | 2 | 3 | 4 |
| Template DNA | phsC | phsAB | phsABC |
| Primers | phsC_F & phsC_R | phsABC_F & phsAB_R | phsABC_F & phsC_R |
- Chilled tubes on ice, then added 0.5 uL of Phusion DNA polymerase and put in thermocycler.
- Prior to designing thermocycler protocol, used oligocalc to get the following Tm values for the primers.
| Primer | phsABC_R | phsABC_F | phsAB_R | phsC_F |
| Tm | 73˚C | 66˚C | 64˚C | 72˚C |
However, these values seem excessively high, so will just start out with an annealing temperature of 55˚C. Devised the following "phs" Thermocycler Protocol
1. Initial Denaturation-- 2 minutes at 98˚C
2. Denaturation--15 seconds at 98˚C
3. Annealing--15 seconds at 55˚C
4. Extension--3 minutes at 72˚C
Steps 2-4 are repeated for 25 cycles
5. Final Extension--10 minutes at 72˚C
6. Hold--indefinitely at 4˚C
Gel of PCR Products
Ran PCR products on an 0.8% agarose gel with 10 uL of ethidium bromide. Loaded 1 uL of each sample with 9 uL of water and 2 uL of loading buffer. Ran gel until done at 60 V, but had difficulty imaging so left aside to deal visualize the next day, unaware that it would spread.
This day's labwork is also recorded on pages 23-28 of the hard copy lab notebook
PCR amplification of phs
Because the gel run the previous day was no longer good, had to run a second 0.8% agarose gel of the PCR products to determine the success of the PCR reaction. Below is the image of the gel, with a 1 kb ladder in the leftmost lane, phsC in next lane, phsAB in lane 3, and phsABC in lane 4.
The phsC fragment seems to have been amplified with decent success, but phsABC and phAB are only present in trace amounts, so the thermocycler protocol will have to be tweaked.
In the mean time, gel extract the phsC from lane 2 and the phsABC from lane 4 using the microcentrifuge variant of the standard gel extraction protocol
TSI Agar Slant Assay
Want to confirm that IPTG will induce H2S production in pSB74 transformants, so inoculate 5 mL Amp/LB liquid cultures of DH5alpha and LE392 transformed with pSB74 and grow them up on shaker at 37˚C for use in TSI agar assay.
The slants don't contain IPTG, so must inject IPTG with the transformants into the slants. Took 200 uL of each cell solution and added to it 50 uL of 1 M IPTG, then injected the resulting mixture into a slant. Left the slants to sit overnight in the fume hood
Double digestion in preparation for ligation
In order to create the desired Biobricks, must insert the phsABC operon into terminator B0015 and put the constitutive promoter J23114 into the generator P0312. Following the Biobrick combination protocol, we then must digest phsABC and J23114 with EcoRI and SpeI and digest B0015 and P0312 with EcoRI and XbaI. The former can be done as a double digest, but the latter must be done sequentially because the enzymes require different buffers.
Set up the following 50 uL digestions:
Digest of phsABC--5 uL EcoRI buffer, 0.5 uL 100x BSA, 40 uL phsABC fragment (from gel extraction), 1.8 uL EcoRI, 1.8 uL SpeI, 0.9 uL water
Digest of J23114--5 uL EcoRI buffer, 0.5 uL 100x BSA, 8 uL miniprepped J23114 (1 ug DNA), 1.8 uL EcoRI , 1.8 uL SpeI, 32.9 uL water
Digest of B0015--5 uL EcoRI buffer, 12 uL miniprepped B0015 (1 ug DNA), 3.6 uL EcoRI , 29.4 uL water
Digest of P0312--5 uL EcoRI buffer, 9 uL miniprepped P0312 (1 ug DNA), 3.6 uL EcoRI , 32.4 uL water
Let each digestion run for two hours at 37˚C, then ran the result through the microcentrifuge version of the
PCR purification protocol.
This day's labwork is also recorded on pages 28-31 of the hard copy lab notebook
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