Basic Subcloning Question

[ChenHA]

On 4 Jun 1999, David L. Haviland, Ph.D. wrote:

> At 11:03 6/4/99 -0400, Nicolas Lemee wrote:
>  
> > I always wonder at people making their crappy home grown comp. cells and
> then using
> >qiagen columns to miniprep the plasmids out) . 
> 
> If one has access to an electroporator, I wonder about those that insist on
> buying electrocomps!   Given how *easy* they are to make AND *match* the
> transformation effiency of store-bought cells, why buy them?  Save the lab
> $$ for more important items like enzymes.

I agree about not buying competent cells.  To me the inability to make
good competent cells is a sign of incompetence.  I don't use
electroporator either (too much trouble and expensive), the cells I
made using the Inoue method works better than those bought
commercially (~5-10 X more transformants) and have never fail me.