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Ampicillin sodium is a member of the extended-spectrum β-lactam family and similar in structure to penicillin. It is used in the selection of antibiotic cell hybrids and has a high rate of action against many gram-negative bacterial strains. Ampicillin sodium targets non-ESBL (Extended Spectrum β-lactamase) bacteria including Staphylococcus and Streptococcus species and medically important enteric pathogens such as Shigella and Salmonella. It has been found to be effective against certain β-lactam sensitive VRE or vancomycin resistant Enterococcus species. Resistance to ampicillin is routinely utilized as a selectable marker to confirm successful cell transformation. Ampicillin Sodium is freely soluble in water.

Carbenicillin is a member of the penicillin β-lactam antibiotics. However, unlike most β-lactams, carbenicillin disodium is limited to primarily gram-negative bacteria including Pseudomonas aeruginosa and common enteric species. It can be used in selection protocols and is often preferred over ampicillin due to its increased stability. This allows for less contamination of unwanted bacterial colonies. In addition, carbenicillin has been used to regulate bacterial growth in plants, yielding low regeneration frequencies. It can be used in genetic transformation applications to select for AmpR transformed cells.

Kanamycin is an aminoglycoside antibiotic isolated from Streptomyces kanamyceticus. It is effective against gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria as well as Mycoplasma species. Kanamycin is commonly used to select for bacteria that have been transformed with a kanamycin-resistant gene and plant tissues that have the NPT II (APH3) gene incorporated in them. Kanamycin is very soluble in aqueous solution and is typically used in concentrations of 50-100 µg/ml.

A unique combination of PCR products and a number of proprietary plasmids digested with appropriate restriction enzymes to yield 11 fragments, suitable for use as molecular weight standards for agarose gel electrophoresis. The DNA includes fragments ranging from 100-1,500 base pairs. The 500 and 1,500 base pair bands have increased intensity to serve as reference points. The approximate mass of DNA in each band is provided (0.5 μg a load) for approximating the mass of DNA in comparably intense samples of similar size. The ladder is ready-to-use, and is premixed with loading buffer dye for direct loading on gel.

The BLUEstain™ Protein ladder is a three-color protein standard with 12 prestained proteins covering a wide range molecular weights from ~11 to 245 kDa. Proteins are covalently coupled with a bluechromophore except for two reference bands (one green and one red band at 25 kDa and 75 kDa respectively) when separated on SDS-PAGE (Tris-glycine buffer). The BLUEstain™ Protein ladder, is designed for monitoring protein separation during SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, verification of Western transfer efficiency on membranes (PVDF, nylon, or nitrocellulose) and for approximating the size of proteins. The ladder is supplied in gel loading buffer and is ready to use.

IPTG is an analog of galactose that is non-metabolizable and inactivates the lac repressor to induce synthesis of β-galactosidase in E. coli. The expression of cloned genes under the control of the lac operon is induced by IPTG. It is also a substrate for thigalactoside transacetylase and has been reported to induce penicillinase in bacteria.

Luciferin is a common bioluminescent reporter used for in vivo imaging of the expression of luciferase. This water soluble substrate for the firefly luciferase enzyme utilizes ATP and Mg2+ as cofactors to emit a characteristic yellow-green emission in the presence of oxygen, which shifts to red light in vivo at 37°C. Through the utilization of ATP, the reaction can be further used to indicate the presence of energy or life in order to function as a life-death stain.

Luciferin is a common reagent used throughout the biotechnology field and specifically for in vivo imaging. Luciferase labeled tumor cells, stem cells or infectious diseases are often inoculated into research animals such as rats or mice for investigation. The injection of luciferin allows for the real-time, noninvasive monitoring of disease progression and/or drug efficacy in these model systems through Bioluminescence Imaging (BLI).

Luciferin is also commonly used for in vitro research, including luciferase and ATP assays, gene reporter assays, high throughput sequencing and various contamination assays. ^®