How do I make dh5a competent cells?

1) Inoculate an LB culture with DH5α cells (directly from the frozen stock without thawing) and grow overnight at 37 °C. 2) Add 5 mL of this overnight culture to 500 mL of SOB medium in a 2 L flask. 3) Grow cells to an OD600 between 0.4 or 0.6. Do not exceed 0.6.

What are DH5 alpha competent cells?

MAX Efficiency DH5α Competent Cells are a well-known, versatile strain that can be used in many everyday cloning applications. In addition to supporting blue/white screening, recA1 and endA1 mutations in DH5α cells increase insert stability and improve the quality of plasmid DNA prepared from minipreps.

Why is DH5 alpha used for transformation?

DH5 alpha has a recA mutation, so it does no heterologous recombination which ensures a higher insert stability . Additionally, it lacks some endonucleases which might digest the plasmids during the isoation procedure. DH5 alpha is additionally competent for blue-white screening.

Why glycerol is used in competent cell preparation?

Hi. It is a cryoprotectant agent in order to protect the sensitive bacterial cells from ice crystal. With glycerol the formed ice crystals become smaller and the damage to competent cells is decreased.

What does CaCl2 do to bacterial cells?

The ice-cold CaCl2 solution facilitates binding of DNA to the surface of the cell, which then enters the cell after a short period of heat- shock (3). Cells that are successfully transformed are usually identified by selection or screening markers such as drug resistance or fluorescence (4).

What is endA1?

endA1: This strain lacks Endonuclease I (non-specific digestion) for cleaner preparations of DNA and better results in downstream applications. glnV44: In this strain a suppression of amber (UAG) stop codons (required for some phage growth) by insertion of glutamine was carried out.

What does dh5a mean?

DH5-Alpha Cells are E. coli cells engineered by American biologist Douglas Hanahan to maximize transformation efficiency. They are defined by three mutations: recA1, endA1 which help plasmid insertion and lacZΔM15 which enables blue white screening.

Why is DH5 alpha not used for expression?

DH5A cells have specific genetics to store a plasmid called EGFP-pBAD plasmid. Therefore the genetics could be more suited for storage than expression of plasmids.

What does DH5a mean?

Why is calcium chloride used for competent cells?

The addition of calcium chloride to a cell suspension promotes the binding of plasmid DNA to lipopolysaccharides (LPS). Positively charged calcium ions attract both the negatively charged DNA backbone and the negatively charged groups in the LPS inner core.