While ampicillin is commonly used as a selection marker for E. coli and other bacteria during plasmid DNA isolation, protein expression and gene cloning, there are several problems that you may encounter if you are not aware of its limitations.What are these limitations and how can you avoid them? Here are some things that you definitely need to know.
There are several selectable markers that can be used to identify bacterial cells that contain a specific trait. Most of these markers are genes that confer resistance to antibiotics such as ampicillin, kanamycin, tetracycline and chloramphenicol.
By introducing a selectable marker gene into the bacterial cells, the colonies that have successfully taken up the plasmid will most likely develop a resistance against that particular antibiotic while those that do not would eventually perish.The surviving colonies can then be isolated, propagated and used for subsequent downstream experimentations.
