Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Procedure:
I. Run your digests of ATT recombinants from the previous lab on a 0.8% agarose gel.
Make up 50 mL of agarose gel solution with 0.5 L EtBr; pour your gel.
Add 2 L of loading buffer + RNase to each digest, load 20 L of each, and run
the gel at 100V for ~45 minutes.
Photograph the gel. Include a ruler in the picture to measure the distance from the
wells to the bands. This will be used later to interpret the results of your Southern
blot. Cut off one corner of the gel for orientation.
1
GTC Lab 7
3. Change the solution and continue to soak the gel for another 15 minutes (minimum).
4. Cut a piece of nylon membrane exactly the size of the gel. Wear gloves to prevent
transferring greasy fingerprints to the membrane. Cut a corner of the membrane that
corresponds to the cut corner of your gel. Float the membrane on the surface of some
deionized water in a plastic weighboat until it wets completely. You will be able to see
a change in the membrane color from white to more translucent.
5. While the DNA is denaturing, set up your transfer apparatus. Place a piece of blotting
paper on a glass plate supported on the edges of a plastic transfer dish. This will be
demonstrated in class. The ends of the blotting paper should drape over the edges of
the plate. Fill the dish with transfer buffer until the level of the liquid reaches almost to
the top of the support (glass plate). When the blotting paper on the top of the support
is wetted, roll a glass pipet over the surface to eliminate the air bubbles.
6. Take the gel from the solution in step 3, flip it upside down so that the underside is
now on top, and center it on top of the blotting paper on the support. Run a gloved
finger or roll a glass pipet over the surface to ensure that there are not bubbles trapped
between the gel and the support.
7. Surround the gel with strips of parafilm.
8. Place the wet membrane on top of the gel. Chase out any bubbles between the gel and
the membrane using a gloved finger or by rolling a glass tube over the top.
9. Cut two pieces of blotting paper the exact size of the gel. Wet them in transfer buffer,
then place them on top of the wet membrane.
10. Cut a stack of paper towels the exact size of the gel. The stack should be at least 6 cm
high. Place the stack on top of the blotting paper.
11. Put a glass plate on top of the stack and weigh it down with a small flask.
2
GTC Lab 7
12. Allow the transfer to proceed by capillary action overnight.
The next day:
13. Disassemble the transfer sandwich, and soak the membrane in neutralization buffer
for 15 minutes at room temperature. This removes any pieces of agarose sticking to
the membrane and neutralizes the membrane.
14. Place the membrane on a paper towel to dry. Make sure the DNA side (the side
facing down on the gel) is UP. It will be retrieved from your bench and stored by a
lab instructor at the end of the day.
Part III: Probe labeling
The probe for the Southern blot will be labeled with digoxigenin (DIG), which is a steroid
hapten. DIG is conjugated to dUTP, which will be incorporated into your probe by polymerase
activity. DIG-dUTP incorporated into the probe is then detected by an antibody (antidigoxigenin) that is covalently bound to the enzyme alkaline phosphatase. The alkaline
phosphatase substrate CSPD is then put on the membrane. Enzymatic dephosphorylation of
CSPD by alkaline phosphatase leads to a light emission at a maximum of 477 nm, which is
detected by exposure to X-ray film for ~30 minutes. Thus, the light will be emitted only where
the antibody has bound to the DIG.
Making the probe - overview:
DIG-dUTP will be incorporated into the probe by the random prime method. In this technique,
the probe DNA to be labeled is first denatured into single strands. Then random hexamers (6nucleotide single-stranded primers in all random combinations of nucleotide sequence) are
annealed to the single-strand probe template. dNTPs (including the labeled dNTP, in this case
DIG-dUTP, are added along with Klenow enzyme in a reaction buffer, and the primer is extended
by polymerase activity, which also incorporates the labeled nucleotide into the growing chain.
Procedure:
1. You will start with 100 ng of DNA label. The concentration of the stock will be provided
in class. Add sterile water to a final volume of 16 L in a microcentrifuge tube.
2. Denature the DNA by heating in a 100C heat block for 10 min and quickly chilling in an
ice bath.
3. Add 4 L of the labeling mix to the denatured DNA, mix, and centrifuge briefly.
4. Incubate the reaction overnight in a 37C waterbath.
5. Your lab instructor will stop the reaction by heating the reaction to 65C for 10
min. This denatures and inactivates the Klenow enzyme. Your probe will be stored
at -20C until you are ready to probe your blot (next week).
3
GTC Lab 7
GTC Lab 7
GTC Lab 7
DNA for making the probe: Digest 4-5 g of pIGF-gtw with BamHI, resolve
bands on an agarose gel, and excise the 1.3 kb band and purify from the gel using
any standard gel extraction technique or kit. This contains the ATT recombination
sites. Some of this DNA will be retained in the recombinant molecule, so this
fragment can be used effectively as a probe.
After hybridization it is important that the blot not dry out as this will lead to high
background signal.
Students might complete their blots at different times. It may be easiest to wait for
several to finish before exposing blots to film. The signal will slowly increase for
about two hours, and then slowly begin to decrease, so the blots should be OK to
stand for a short time before exposure. Typically a 5 minute exposure to film is
long enough to see bands. After developing the 5 minute exposure, you can decide
how much longer to expose the next film.
If multiple bands appear on the blot, students should try to identify the darkest
staining band and assume that this is the target band.
GTC Lab 7
Expected results: The 1.3 kb band should be hybridized on the lane of vector
alone digested with BamHI. In other lanes, a slower migrating band should
hybridize.