Faster Ligations: PEGing down the Secret

Overnight ligations are inconvenient — especially when they fail. Luckily, there’s a straightforward way to faster DNA ligations. This article highlights the secret ingredient to faster ligation reactions and offers some tips and caveats on its use. For a general overview of DNA ligations, see here and here. Buy a Quick Ligation Kit The most…

Guide to Making and Storing Competent Yeast Cells

Yeasts, such as Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Schizosaccharomyces pombe and Pichia pastoris, are routinely used in biology research labs around the world. Yeasts are easy-to-culture, unicellular eukaryotes, and make excellent model organisms because of the similarity of their genes and proteins with those of their mammalian counterparts. Yeast cells are used to study gene function, protein interactions,…