Team:Newcastle/22 June 2010

Aims

The aim of today's Lab practice was to extract the plasmids for GFP and RFP, digest the 2 plasmids and extract the 2 inserts and 1 of the backbones (vector)from an agarose gel. From this a ligation was set up.

Materials and Protocol

QIagen Miniprep Kit Using a Microcentrifuge for Plasmid Extraction

Please refer to: Qiagen Minipreps for materials required and protocol.

Digest

Please refer to: Restriction digests for materials required and protocol.

Gel extraction

Please refer to: Gel extraction for materials required and protocol.

Agarose Gel Electrophoresis

Please refer to: Gel electrophoresis for materials required and protocol.

Dr Wendy demostrating how to use gel electrophoresis machine

Gel tank

Deena pouring hot molten gel

Cut gel out

Putting the gel on the geldoc

Preparing to cut the gel

Gel illuminated by the UV light which is emitted by the geldoc

We cut the inserts which were about 900bp and we use the backbone from the plasmid consisting rfp.

QIAquick Gel extraction kit

Phil cutting the gel

Transferring the cut gel part into a 2 ml microfuge tube

Set up ligation

Transformation protocol

1. Thaw a 200µl aliquot of the desired strain of E. coli and add the transforming DNA (10 ng of vector DNA in 10 µl). Incubate for 45 min at 42°C.
2. Heat-shock the cells for 120 secs, and place on ice again for 3-4 min.
3. Add 1ml of LB broth and incubate the cells at 37°C for 1-15 hr in a water bath with gentle shaking.
4. Plate out 100-200 µl/plate on LB (agar at 1.5%), containing the appropriate selection markers.
5. Incubate plates overnight at 37°C.

Nanodrop Protocol

Nanodrop can be used to measure the DNA, RNA and protein

1. Select Nanodrop program from the desktop
2. To clean Nanodrop, add a drop of water on the spectrometer and press blank
3. After cleaning, wipe the water off
4. To equalizen the equipment, add 3 μl of the buffer used in the sample and press blank
5. Wipe the buffer off
6. To measure sample, add 3 μl of the sample and press measure
7. If dealing with multiple samples, clean the equipment with water at regular intervals
8. After measurement, clean the equipment with a drop of water on the spectrometer and press blank

Outcome