Selecting for transgene positive cells

Transcript

MARION WOODCOCK
To know our gene has successfully incorporated we’ll need to screen our cells; that our transgene will have an antibiotic resistant gene as well. So We then apply antibiotics to our cells and the cells that haven’t taken up the transgene will die. And those that have taken up the transgene will continue to survive and they will also divide and form a small colony of identical cells, and that is what we are looking for. We do characterise our clones further and that involves some PCR, Polymerase Chain Reaction, it’s an enzymatic reaction which is like using a photocopier and runs off a whole lot of copies of our gene and so that we can run that on a gel and visualize it -that the transgene is actually present. Because sometimes we will have false positives that are growing, but they actually don't have the transgene so we want to look for those.

And then from there once we have confirmed that our cells are transgenic we will hand them onto the cloning team.