Team:EPF-Lausanne/Notebook/29 June 2012

From 2012.igem.org



Contents

Morning

Comments

Took the falcon tubes out of the incubator. There was growth for all concentrations of Spectinomycin (Spc) (slightly less for the higher concentrations, but the difference is not easily noticeable.

Team-EPF-Lausanne Notebook 29 June 2012 turbidity.jpg

Our competent cells grew very well on the ampicillin plates with the LovTAP plasmid, but nothing grew on the Spc plates.

Successfully prepared the competent cells for the mini-prep in the afternoon (bacteria have been pelleted and put in the freezer).

Afternoon

Protocol: Miniprep


The slim tubes can be centrifuged in the machine in front of the "Gel hood", at 4000 rpm for 10 min. The fatter ones, in the E. coli centrifuge by the fridge (the tip can be left inside, since it floats).

Pellets resuspended with RNase containing buffer (Resuspension Buffer R3, from Invitrogen, equivalent to Buffer P1 from Qiagen, in Sowmya's box in the fridge). Note: keep the buffer in ice if you are not bringing it back to the fridge for some minutes.

We then use the QIAGEN QIAprep Spin Miniprep Kit with their [http://www.qiagen.com/literature/render.aspx?id=370 protocol] (page 22) and a microcentrifuge.

Minipreps were made with bacteria from the plates with growth.



Protocol: Gel Electrophoresis


Agarose concentration depends on the size of the DNA to be run. We will mostly use 1%. VOL is the desired volume of gel in ml:


CH Lab

  1. Add 0.01*VOL g of agarose to a clean glass bottle.
  2. Pour VOL/50 ml of 50xTAE in a graduated cylinder. Fill up to VOL ml with di water.
  3. Add the resulting VOL ml of 1xTAE to the glass bottle with agarose.
  4. Microwave, at 7, the bottle (loose cap!) until it boils.
  5. Carefully remove bottle (can be super heated!) and check for the total absence of particles. Microwave again if needed.
  6. Prepare a gel box, with comb, and fill it up with the agarose solution (maybe not the whole solution is needed).
  7. Add 0.05 µl per ml of gel in the box of Red Gel (it's in the iGEM drawer) and stirr until disolved.
  8. Wait until cold and solidified.
  9. Carefully remove comb.
  10. Place the box in the electrophoresis chamber.
  11. Fill up the electrophresis chamber with 1x TAE buffer.
  12. Add blue dye to the DNA samples (6x loading buffer, that is 10 µl in 50 µl of DNA solution).
  13. Inject 30 µl of ladder marker in the first well (that's 1 µg of DNA).
  14. Inject 60 µl of each DNA solution in the other wells.
  15. Set voltage to 70-90 V and run for 30-40 min, or until the dye reaches the last 25% of the gel length (DNA travels from - to +).
  16. Place the gel under the camera, cover, turn UV on and take photos!


Preparing the ladder:

  • get 1kb ladder DNA from the freezer (500 µg/ml).
  • for 30 charges, 30 µl per charge, we need 900 µl:
    • 60 µl of 1kb ladder DNA
    • 150 µl of dye (6x loading buffer)
    • 690 µl of water

BM Lab

In this lab the gels are slightly different. The total volumes for the small, the medium and the large gel are respectively 60ml, 80ml and 90ml. As we use 0.5x TAE buffer instead of 1x, we can use higher voltages (170V seems to work fine). The gel should run 20-40 minutes, not more. As the gel is thinner, load less DNA (up to ~10ul).

Around 60 ml of gel prepared. Steps 1 to 7 in protocol.

Comments

This was done with the LovTAP Read-Out plasmid. The QC hasn't been done yet.