Dörte Steinbrück

Mini-scale cultivation method enables expeditious plasmid production in Escherichia coli

The standard procedure in the lab for plasmid isolation usually involves a 2‐mL, 16 h over‐night cultivation in 15‐mL bioreaction tubes in LB medium. This is time consuming, and not suitable for high‐throughput applications. This study shows that it is possible to produce plasmid DNA (pDNA) in a 1.5‐mL microcentrifuge tube with only 100 μL cultivation volume in less than 7 h with a simple protocol. Compared with the standard LB cultivation for pDNA production reaching a final pDNA concentration range of 1.5–4 μg mL–1, a 6‐ to 10‐fold increase in plasmid concentration (from 10 up to 25 μg mL–1 cultivation volume) is achieved using an optimized medium with an internal substrate delivery system (EnBase®). Different strains, plasmids, and the applicability of different inoculation tools (i.e. different starting ODs) were compared, demonstrating the robustness of the system. Additionally, dissolved oxygen was monitored in real time online, indicating that under optimized conditions oxygen limitation can be avoided. We developed a simple protocol with a significantly decreased procedure time, enabling simultaneous handling of more samples, while a consistent quality and a higher final pDNA concentration are ensured.

Photophysics of Ochratoxin A in Aqueous Solution

Abstract The photophysics of Ochratoxin A (OTA) in aqueous solution strongly depends on the pH. Due to its molecular structure OTA is prone to an excited state proton transfer reaction, which rules the photophysical properties. Based on results of absorption and fluorescence measurements the rate constants of the proton transfer reactions (forward and back reaction) were determined and subsequently, the pK*a value was calculated. Based on the results, optimized experimental conditions for the analysis can be determined e. solvent conditions (HPLC chromatography) or excitation and emission wavelength (fluorescence spectroscopy).