Avoid the Cloning Blues This Season

I was blasting a holiday music playlist while driving recently, and Presley’s Blue Christmas played. I couldn’t get the phrase “Christmas Cloning Blues” out of my mind, and by the time I arrived at my destination, this happened:

Cloning Blues Christmas

(to the tune of Blue Christmas by Elvis Presley)

Blue and white colonies on a selective plate. Careful planning can help you avoid the cloning blues
Blue/White cloning is a standard technique in molecular biology labs.

I’ll have a blue Christmas without you

Colonies so blue, insert without you

Incubating my plates at 37 degrees

Won’t be the same if you’re not in lacZ


And all those blue colonies are forming

When my lab mates’ clonings are performing

They’ll be doing alright,

With their plates all filled with white

But I’ll have a blue, blue, blue cloning

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T-Vector Cloning: Questions, Answers and Tips

Blue/White colony screening helps you pick only the colonies that have your insert.

Q: Can PCR products generated with GoTaq DNA Polymerase be used to for T- vector cloning?

A: Yes. GoTaq® DNA Polymerase is a robust formulation of unmodified Taq Polymerase. GoTaq® DNA Polymerase lacks 3’ →5’ exonuclease activity and displays terminal transferase activity that adds a 3′ deoxyadenosine (dA) to product ends. As a result, PCR products amplified using GoTaq® DNA Polymerases (including the GoTaq® Flexi and GoTaq® G2 polymerases) will contain A-overhangs which makes them suitable for T-vector cloning with the pGEM®-T (Cat.# A3600), pGEM®-T Easy (Cat.# A1360) and pTARGET™ (Cat.# A1410) Vectors.

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Cloning Modified Blunt-ended DNA Fragments into T-Vectors

Tailing blunt-ended DNA fragments with TaqDNA Polymerase allows efficient cloning of these fragments into T-Vectors such as the pGEM®-T Vectors. This method also eliminates some of the requirements of conventional blunt-end cloning — Fewer steps, who can argue with that?

Blue/White colony screening helps you pick only the colonies that have your insert.
Blue/White colony screening helps you pick only the colonies that have your insert.

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From Napkin Sketch to “Custom Kit”: CloneWeaver® Workflow Builder Gets Your Cloning Organized

20161018_150403Let’s face it, most lab techs and purchasing agents aren’t all that happy when you send them an Instagram picture of your latest lunchroom-napkin cloning strategy as your order form for your next big cloning experiment. So we have created the CloneWeaver® Workflow Builder. You can transfer your brilliance easily from that lunchroom napkin to an orderly email or print out of every vector, enzyme, purification kit, and transfection reagent your next big molecular cloning experiment requires. You can even save your one-of-a-kind “cloning kit” for future endeavors.

The CloneWeaver® tool will walk you through every step of the molecular cloning process from selecting a vector to finding a transfection reagent for mammalian cells. So if you are starting a new project, we are with you every step of the way. We will help you find restriction enzymes and even remind you about markers and biochemicals that you may want to have on hand for your experiment. Within the tool we have links to additional resources like our RE Tool and catalog pages if you need more help.

clone_weaverAlready have a favorite vector and a freezer full of restriction enzymes? No problem, skip those steps and move on to getting the perfectly sized nucleic acid markers or the particular polymerase your experiment requires.

Are you teaching a molecular genetics course? CloneWeaver® workflow builder is perfect for creating the list of laboratory reagents you are going to need for your students—and you will have this same list as a starting point for other lab experiments or classes later on because you can save the lists that you build. You can even pass them along to other professors.

So, if molecular cloning is in your future, let us help you get organized. Try the CloneWeaver® Workflow Builder.

Choosing Your Subcloning Strategy

Before you begin your subcloning, you need to know: The restriction enzyme (RE) sites available for subcloning in your parent vector multiple cloning region (or in the insert if you need to digest the insert); the RE sites available in the destination vector multiple cloning region (MCR); and if these same sites also occur in your insert. Once you know this information, you can use the chart below to decide which subcloning strategy to use.

4498MA-[Converted]

To learn more about subcloning, visit our Subcloning Notebook.

Successful Ligation and Cloning of Your Insert

Ligation and cloning
Cloning PCR product.

You have PCR amplified your insert of interest, made sure the PCR product is A tailed and are ready to clone into a T vector (e.g., pGEM®-T Easy Vector). The next step is as simple as mixing a few microliters of your purified product with the cloning vector in the presence of DNA ligase, buffer and ATP, right? In fact, you may need to consider the molar ratio of T vector to insert.

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