Botany

Antibiotic resistant markers and Replica plating Technique – Screening recombinant methods

An antibiotic resistance marker is a gene that produces a protein that provides cells with resistance to an antibiotic. Bacteria with transformed DNA can be identified by growing on a medium containing an antibiotic. Recombinants will grow on these media as they contain genes encoding resistance to antibiotics such ampicillin, chloro amphenicol, tetracycline or kanamycin, etc., while others may not be able to grow in these media, hence it is considered useful selectable marker.

Replica plating technique

A technique in which the pattern of colonies growing on a culture plate is copied. A sterile f ilter plate is pressed against the culture plate and then lifted. Then the filter is pressed against a second sterile culture plate. This results in the new plate being infected with cell in the same relative positions as the colonies in the original plate. Usually, the medium used in the second plate will differ from that used in the first. It may include an antibiotic or exclude a growth factor. In this way, transformed cells can be selected.

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