Cancer Gene Cloning Lab (CGCL)

Author
Mrs S Merson
Institute of Cancer Research

High Throughput Robotics
The CGCL provides a range of microbiology and molecular genetics techniques that are utilized by the National Prostate Cancer Collaborative. The CGCL offers the following facilities:

• DNA Sequencing
• Allelotyping and LOH studies
• Taqman real time PCR studies
• Robotic Colony picking
• Robotic Genetic library gridding
• Robotic sample handling
• Microarraying Robots

The instruments systems in place in the lab to carry out the above techniques are:

ABI Prism 3100 Genetic Analyser
The CGCL currently has two 3100s. The 3100 is a capillary based system which automatically analyses DNA Molecules labelled with multi-colour flourescent dyes. The 3100 is suitable for DNA Sequencing, giving base pair reads up to 1kb which can be used for sequence conformation of clones and mutation analysis, and fragment analysis such as alleotyping (linkage) and loss of Heterozy Gosity (Allelic loss).

ABI Prism 377 Genetic Analyser
The CGCL has one 377. The 377 is a gel based system which automatically analyses DNA molecules labelled with multi-colour flourescent dyes. The 377 acts as a back up for the 3100s when they are working at full capacity.

ABI Prism 7000 "TAQMAN" Real Time PCR Machine
The instruments is used by the CGCL to look fo amplifications of specific genes within a large range of test samples.

Genomic Solutions, Flexys Robot
This robot is used to pick colonies from agar plates into 96 or 384 well culture plates. It is also used to grid genetic libraries onto nylon filters that can be used in hybridisation techniques.