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Save time! no freezing required!
No, the title is not the promotion for a product but information on one of our habits. So it's getting towards 5pm and you've added your salt of choice and ethanol/isopropanol for your nucleic acid precipitations. The freezer makes a convenient holding place for your tubes and you're off home.
making one band from many
This article was originally published at BitesizeBio here
It’s the molecular biologist’s version of ‘I have good news. . and bad news’.
The good news is that I amplified the DNA band of interest. The bad news is that I amplified these other bands as well! Oh, and this smear. What to do?
Typically you might try and cut out the band of interest and gel-purify – an issue if it’s a lower intensity product and most of the DNA is lost in the subsequent purification. Or the products are more closely spaced than your dexterity allows.
more more plasmid
In the days when doing plasmid minipreps, I certainly enjoyed the increased yields from using Terrific Broth (TB) over standard LB. Although, because it took a while to make - and would get pinched by others and inevitably contaminated - it was always labelled as something else. UFB used to stay on the shelf quite happily. Indeed, if the recipe was for Terrific Broth then mine was better than just terrific - it was Un-%&$#ing-Believable.