The gel I ran on Tuesday barely had any DNA in it, sadly. I was prepared for this minor setback (certainly not the first one.) I decided to start from ground zero and take yet another set of DNA directly from my plants. After extracting the DNA, I prepared a PCR reaction and let it run overnight. I had started with new DNA, recalculated the annealing temperature, and double-checked all my work. On top of that, we had a specialist come in and recalibrate our pipettes. What could possibly go wrong?
This morning, I was informed that someone had accidentally unplugged all of the PCR machines, interrupting my reactions. The responsible party had attempted to set the reaction to a point where the remaining steps would be completed, but I was warned not to get my hopes up.
Beautiful. Just beautiful.
Right now, a gel containing the sad remains of my PCR is running. I expect that there will be little or no DNA in my samples and I will have to run another PCR today.
On the upside, I believe that I have discovered the origin of my plants' dwarfism. They have refused to grow any taller despite frequent application of Brassinosteroids, strongly supporting my hypothesis that these mutants possess dysfunctional Brassinosteroid receptor proteins.
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