Lidstrom:Colony PCR

Back to Protocols

General:

• Use Taq. It is cheap. Do not use Phusion. It is ~$1/50uL rxn. Taq is less accurate & less fast but that's fine.
• The thermocycling denaturation & extension temperature should be that recommended by your particular PCR kit. I have seen 68oC & 72oC.
• The primer concentration varies in different people's recipes. Janet hasn't tested variations.
• One fatal flaw: overloading the PCR. Just a tiny piece of a colony should be used.
• If they aren't working, you can put them in tubes, put them at 95oC for a while, then centrifuge they lysed cells so all the debris falls out. Run PCR from on the aqueous portion.

• Janet is using NEB's OneTaq quick-load (not hot start) & their recommended protocol

Parameters:

• T_anneal: up to you. For VF2 & VR 54-56oC works well.
• t_anneal: use 30s/kb and round up.
• rxn volume: 10-25 uL. Too small of a volume can result in overloading without noticing.

• Stay tuned for an image of what "overloading" can look like!