transformation

[Evereh G Robert]

It is not clear to me what exactly hapens when a E.coli cell takes up a 
piece of DNA during transformation.  In particular, does a cell usually 
take up more than one piece of DNA and do these compete for 
maintainence?  Or, alternatively, do the cells only take up one piece of 
DNA.  I am asking this question because I have been doing some difficult 
clonings in E.coli which will be "shuttled" into Streptomyces lividans TK64.  
I have designed my experiment such that only the correct clones will 
replicate in both E. coli and Streptomyces.  My uncertainty lies in 
whether I need a large number of cells to transform if the desired 
constructs constitute a small fraction of the total plasmid population.

I would be very thankful for any input.


thanks, 

everett