Chemicals needed:
Glucose       
L-(+)-Arabinose  Sigma Cat # A3256 
L-Rhamnose Sigma cat # R3875 
Cb (carbenicillin) Sigma cat # 1389
DL-p-Chlorophenylalanine  Sigma cat # C6506

Media Recipes:

YEG recombination plates:
1 liter Milli Q water
5 g yeast extract
10 g NaCl (5 g for any Zeocin recombinants)
2 g DL-p-Chlorophenylalanine powder (will not dissolve before autoclaving)
20 g agar
AUTOCLAVE
After media has cooled to 55oC add the following and stir gently:
8 ml 50% Glycerol (sterile)
10 ml 20% L-arabinose (filter sterile)
1 ml Carbenicillin at 100mg/ml (for pMSCV selection)
AND antibiotic to select for your insert
POUR

YEGlu:
1 liter MilliQ water
5 g yeast extract
10 g NaCl
autoclave and cool
add 8 ml of 50% Glucose (filter sterile)

Strain and vector information:

Recipient pMSCV:  PheS gene flanked with 2-Isce-I site and homologous sites for recombination, 10.6 kb. Carbenicillin (amp) resistant.

Recipient Strain BW28705I/pML300:  pML300 plasmid carries the recombinase driven, temperature sensitive rhamnose inducible PrhaB-gbexo promoter. This promoter is inhibited by glucose. This strain also contains an arabinose inducible promoter paraBAD controlling expression of the I-sceI gene. Induction of I-SceI gene allows for the cleavage of library cassette out of donor plasmid. Presence of glucose represses the paraBAD promotor.  pML300 is Spectinomycin (50).

Donor bacterial strain:  BW F’,  the F’ is Tet (1).

Donor vector : Most likely pSHAGMAGIC: insert cassette is between the H1H2 recombination regions which lie just inside two I-SceI cut sites (Sce1-H1-Cassette-

96 well Mating Protocol

Preparation:
1. Streak fresh donor plasmid on LB + proper antibiotic +IPTG/XGAL plate (donor F’ strain contains lac +, it will be blue on the XGAL plate
2. Streak recipient plasmid (pMSCV) on LB+Spec50+CB100+0.2% glucose OR YEGlu+spec50+cb100) Grow at 30oC overnight

Protocol
1. Inoculate 5 ml single colony culture of recipient, and a 1:100 donor culture in 500 ul/well 96 well culture box.  Grow recipient at 30oC  and donor at 37oC, shaking overnight.
Donor and donor control: LB+ Kan20+Chlor50 (your insert may differ)
Recipient: YEGlu+spec50+Carbenicillin100
2. The next day, wash the glucose out of the recipient. Pellet o/n culture by spinning 4,000 rpm for 5 min. Resuspend the pellet in 10 ml LB and spin 4,000 rpm for 5 min. Repeat wash. Resuspend pMSCV pellet in 5 ml LB.
3. Setting up Mating Ratio: OVERVIEW : The idea is to set up a mating ratio of 1:1 (recipient:donor) in each well at a total volume of 100ul/well. Typically, the OD of both donor and recipient are taken before proper dilutions can be determined. After proper donor:recipient dilutions are determined (see below), recipient dilution pool is made by adding mls of overnight culture to a volume of LB + 0.2% Rhamnose. From this recipient pool, 100ul recipient pool is aliquotted to is added to each well of  Costar U-bottom 96 well plate. Then each well gets either 1-2ul of donor overnight culture.

Donor dilution: Acceptable donor OD600  range is 0.060 to 0.300 . Measure the cultures straight OD600 of donor for one row per plate and calculate an average. Depending on where in the average OD lies, you can make a 1:50 or a 1:100 dilution of donor. Example: if  average donor OD is on the low end (0.060 to 0.150) make a 1:50 dilution by pipetting 2ul/well (final reaction volume will be 100ul/well) and in the higher OD600 range make a 1:100 dilution by pipetting 1ul of o/n culture per well.

Recipient dilution: Acceptable range OD600 for recipient is 0.080 to 0.160. Depending on the OD and dilution of the donor, make a dilution of recipient into LB + 0.2% Rhamnose, 100ul/well.
Example: avg donor OD was .9 and you made a donor dilution of 1:50. 
- If, your recipient OD is 0.146, you would make a recipient dilution of 1:100.
(1ul)(96 wells)(14 96well plates) =  1.34 mls into 138.66 mls LB+Rhamnose
- If your recipient OD is 0.800, you would make recipient dilution of 1:50.
(2ul)(96 wells)(14 96wellplates) = 2.68 mls into 137.32 mls LB+Rhamnose

The pMSCV recipient is very efficient and will typically give good recombinant representation for a broad range of donor OD’s.

4. Shake donor:recipient culture in Costar plate, for 2 hours at 30oC
5. After the 2 hours, add 20% L-arabinose (filter sterile) to a final concentration of 0.2%
6. Place your mating cultures at 37oC NOT SHAKING for 2 hours. This is the actual mating step, induced by arabinose
7. Move to 37oC shaker for another 2 hours. This grows all forms of mated recombinants and unmated bugs
8. Prong mated cultures onto PREWARMED 150 X 15 mm YEG recombination plates  PLACE AT 41oC overnight.
NOTES: Temp is crucial. Overshooting temp is detrimental, it’s better to have temp 1-2 degrees lower than 42oC. However, you may incur higher background of recipient if the temperature is too low.
Plates are also crucial as positive and negative selection happen at the plating stage. Use fresh plates and do not let them dry out during prewarming. Dried out plates will cause you to lose colonies and wet plates will make colonies run together.

Mating Efficiency:  Make 10-1, 10-2 and 10-3 dilutions for two samples per plate, and spread 100 ul of each dilution onto PREWARMED  plates of YEG recombinant plates. To calculate efficiency of the mating, count the colonies on the plate.
# colonies X dilution X 10 =   # colonies/ml        

a high efficiency is  107 colonies/ml