PCR Hot start PCR

Bacterial culture is a process of letting bacteria multiply in a controlled fashion (temperature, humidity, oxygen content or shaking), in a predetermined culture medium (antibiotic resistance to obtain homogenous clones). It is an important step, especially during cloning, as a single cell can be grown homogeneously (on semi-solid or in liquid conditions) to obtain colonies. As mentioned, bacteria can be cultured in broth cultures (Luria broth or LB) or Petri dishes (Agar plates). A specific antibiotic can be added to the broth or agar plates in order to grow bacteria which have the gene insert conferring its resistance to that antibiotic. Following points are necessary to consider for optimal growth conditions: 1. In general, most bacteria grow well at 37C, but there are some strains which require growth temperatures between 25-30C. 2. It is ideal in broth cultures to fill the flask to ⅓ or less of the total flask volume for optimal aerobic growth. 3. Shaking speeds between 140-180 rpm are appropriate to ensure aeration and that the cells are surrounded by fresh media, and do not settle.

Flow cytometry is an immunophenotyping technique whereby sing cell suspensions are stained for either cell surface markers or intracellular proteins by fluorescently-labelled antibodies and analyzed with a flow cytometer, where fluorescently-labelled molecules are excited by the laser to emit light at varying wavelengths, which is then detected by the instrument. There are several key criteria which are required to be kept in mind while designing a flow experiment- 1. Antibody titration (optimal dilution of antibodies should be calculated in order to avoid over- or under- saturated signals for proper detection of surface and intracellular markers), 2. Precision (3 or more replicates of the sample should be used per experiment), 3. Specificity (proper isotype controls should be included in the experiment), 4. Day-to-day variability (experiments should be repeated 3 or more times to ensure consistency and avoid variability due to flow cytometer settings), 5. Antibody interaction (Fluorescence minus one or FMO should be used, which is the comparison of signals from panel minus one antibody vs. the full panel), and 6. Antibody stability (fluorescently-labelled antibodies should be stored at 4C).

I intend to use iScript cDNA Synthesis Kit in order to synthesize cDNA for qPCR. I have confirmed that my RNA is pure however, according to my extraction protocol I have suspended the RNA in TE buffer containing 1mM EDTA. Will the presence of EDTA have an effect on cDNA synthesis?

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When extracting nucleic acids from cell cultures, thorough homogenization of cells via vortexing in lysis buffer is very necessary. Choose the best RNA isolation method keeping in mind the downstream applications, generally, column-based isolations result in clean and concentrated RNA samples. Downstream applications like sequencing and cDNA synthesis require high-quality RNA, always treat the samples with DNases and check their integrity by running a gel.

The estimation of DNA methylation level heavily depends on the complete conversion of non-methylated DNA cytosines. It is crucial to ensure complete conversion of non-methylated cytosines in DNA. Therefore, it is important to incorporate controls for bisulfite reactions, as well as to pay attention to the appearance of cytosines in non-CpG sites after sequencing, which is an indicator of incomplete conversion.

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