Sending:

  1. A circled area (around 1 cm) is marked with a pencil on a clean filter paper (Whatman #1 or equivalent).
  2. About 2 µg of plasmid DNA is spotted into the circle. The filter paper is then air dried at room temperature.
  3. Once the spotted filter paper is dry, it is covered with saran wrap and shipped to you in an envelope.

Receiving:

  1. To recover the DNA, cut out the marked circle that contains the dried plasmid (or use only half and store the other half for future use)
  2. Insert the disk into a 1.5ml Eppendorf tube using clean tweezers. Add 30 to 50 µl of TE buffer (MQ water works as well), vortex briefly and then incubate at room temperature for 5 minutes.
  3. After incubation, vortex again and centrifuge the samples for a few seconds.
  4. Remove 5 to 10 µl of supernatant, and use this for a heat shock transformation or an electroporation. Keep in mind that you will need ccdB-resistant cells if the plasmid still has a ccdB cassette!
  5. Plate your transformed bacteria on selective medium and grow overnight at 37°C. You should expect between 100 - 2000 colonies.