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Search below to delve into the Bitesize Bio archive. Here, you’ll find over two decades of the best articles, live events, podcasts, and resources, created by real experts and passionate mentors, to help you improve as a bioscientist. Whether you’re looking to learn something new or dig deep into a topic, you’ll find trustworthy, human-crafted content that’s ready to inspire and guide you.
Sometimes the wide view is the best so a good genome viewer is a must for every molecular biologist. We review three leading genome viewer packages to get you started..
Routine PCR? Let’s be honest, there’s no such thing. Even with the simplest PCR reaction things can go wrong, so you need to have a good checklist of ideas for PCR troubleshooting and rectifying the problem. Today I have brainstormed all of the ways I can think of to approach problems with standard PCR reactions….
This is the first in a three-part series on the transformation of E.coli. By the end of this, you should be an expert on E.coli transformation and on which strains to choose for different applications. If you’re already an expert, I hope it’ll be an enjoyable refresher for you. In either case, please comment below…
The whole TLC technique sounds easy to do, but it can be difficult and tricky during interpretation or give unexpected results, especially when working with biomolecules. For this reason, it is important to be familiar with troubleshooting thin layer chromatography. Some of the common problems faced during TLC and their solutions are listed below: Solvent…
When starting a long-term experiment, you need to take a lot of things into consideration (availability of cells, reagents, planning time points), but do you ever think about your antibodies? If you buy an antibody from a manufacturer, run out half way through the study, and buy the same antibody again, have you thought about…
There’s piloting a brand new technique for the first time. Then, there’s jumping through hoops trying to get an established lab technique to work. The former, in contrast to the latter, is expected to be fraught with hardships. Yet troubleshooting an old lab technique that isn’t working anymore, is frustrating at a whole new level….
Need a simple, error-proof protocol for using immunohistochemistry to stain your slides? Here’s a protocol to try – from dewaxing to mounting.
If you google “What’s hot in medicine,” you will see the word “gut microbiome” popping up in every corner of the webpage. Microbes keep your body functioning in balance – from digesting complex carbohydrates to fighting off foreign pathogens and educating your immune system. They have even been linked to maintaining brain function as well….
Flow cytometry remains unparalleled as a single-cell analysis technology. The ability to analyze 14 or more fluorescent parameters on a million cells or more allows for detailed understanding of complex biological processes. The Problem With Traditional Flow Cytometry One limitation of flow cytometry is the reliance on fluorescent tags. Even with careful panel design, loss…
How long has it been since you checked your lab freezer? Remember that plasmid you designed? How about that cell line you developed that now sits idly in the vapors of a liquid Nitrogen tank? And the novel peptide or enzyme from a few years ago that remains buried in permafrost? It’s time to revisit…
To isolate your protein, you are going to need to tag it with something that will allow you to fish it out of the bacterial protein soup. This is where transition metals can help you out!
Mass Cytometry is a relatively new technology which has recently featured in many high-impact journals. You may have read about instruments including the CyTOF, CyTOF2, and more recently, the Helios. With these instruments becoming more widespread, you might find yourself asking, what is mass cytometry, and what can it do for you? The Basis: Conventional…
Scientists today depend heavily on many molecular biology techniques to perform their research. For example, with the advent of next generation sequencing (NGS): scientists are able to look at very minute details, right down to individual genetic sequence variations. However, the increase in experimental complexity means that every extra step becomes more crucial than…
In a previous article, we went over the basic understanding of the inner workings of a flow cytometer. It’s important to grasp the types of measurements that are being made and, perhaps more importantly, what measurements are NOT being made. For simplicity’s sake, we’re going to frame this discussion in terms of a classical flow…
So you have a gene or protein that you think may be involved in migration or invasion and the next step is to embark on migration assays. These assays are useful for testing fundamental migratory processes, such as embryonic development, immune response, metastasis and angiogenesis. For a long time these have been an invaluable mainstay…
Three dimensional cell culture mimics the extracellular matrix (ECM) that offers the structure and support for cells in vivo, thus creating the complex architecture and network required for cellular communication. For 3D cell culture beginners (or enthusiasts), the information available may seem overwhelming. It sure was for me. But it can be simplified. For example,…
As a research intern this summer, part of my project included expressing and purifying a few proteins of interest. Two out of the three proteins posed no problem, but the third caused me to spend an agonizingly long amount of time– setting up new secondary cultures everyday, waiting for them to grow, forgetting to induce…
First of all let me say the technique of labeling tissues (immunohistochemistry, IHC), and cells (immunocytochemistry, ICC) is indeed immunoscience NOT alchemy, though at times it may certainly seem like alchemy! But to scientists inexperienced in this technique, who typically see the results of IHC/ICC experiments in the form of pretty pictures, it can certainly…
We have to rely on artificial systems to test our hypotheses and often have to come up with original set-ups to investigate specific problems. One of these creative inventions is the use of supported lipid bilayers.
The most comprehensive way to evaluate DNA concentration and purity is to use both UV spectrophotometeric measurements and agarose gel eletrophoresis. This quick reference guide gives an overview of the information that can be derived from both. UV spectrophotometric measurement of DNA concentration and purity DNA itself, and most of the common contaminants found in…
So, you’ve extracted your precious RNA and want to check its quality on a gel. Conventionally, you would run a formaldehyde gel, which is messy and requires a lot of prep. Plus, it is a huge undertaking in terms of time (and money) if all you want to do is just check the quality of…
Genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics – words that in 2015 sound very familiar even to a freshman in any biology field. Although most have heard those words before, I keep encountering students or even post-graduates who find it difficult to explain what they are. So, to make things easier here is a peek behind the curtains…
I’ve never run a sequencing gel in my life, but people around me did, and they spent a lot of time on getting it just right. Although the principle described by Sanger in 1975 sounds straightforward (1), sequencing gels are very long and very thin – less than a millimeter thick! They were easy to…
Flow Cytometry is a great way of seeing how many of your cells express a particular marker and how much of it is there. We do this by measuring fluorescence, but, as with all measuring systems, there will be signal that we are always trying to measure the above the noise. The signal that we…
You’ve tried all the usual stuff, and checked the primer sequences twice, but still can’t get that PCR fragment amplified. It’s time to enter the strange world of PCR additives. Over the years a variety of additives have been shown to enhance PCR reactions in certain situations. Here is a summary of some of the…
Normally you need two primers to amplify your segment of interest – one for the 3′ end of your segment of interest and one for your 5′ end. But if you don’t know the sequence of the regions you’re hoping to amplify this can be a problem! Rapid Amplification of cDNA Ends (RACE) is a…
Human bronchial epithelial cells (HBECs) are a challenge to culture. As highly specialised cells that exist in carefully ordered multi-layered structures, they are especially fickle and finding optimum conditions to keep them happy is tricky. The cultures are also extremely sensitive to tiny changes in routine or environment. However, there are certain basic principles that…
Anyone working with laboratory animals has probably realized that simply putting two animals together does not always yield new offspring and reliable continuity of the animal line – unfortunately animal husbandry isn’t that simple! Of course, apart from making sure that the two animals put together are from different genders, there are a lot of…
Western blotting uses electrophoresis and antibody-epitope affinity to give a semi-quantitative and (theoretically) clear measure of protein abundance. It’s a long procedure, filled with many steps—and even more room for error. Learning to troubleshoot certain problems is incredibly important for continued success with this technique. So what do you do when your final imaged product…
Fluorescent tags are widely used for microscopy and expression studies – but it wasn’t so long ago that this everyday tool was unheard of. In this article we’ll talk about how GFP came to be, and what it means for you. Green fluorescent protein, or GFP, was first identified in a fluorescent jellyfish, Aequorea victoria….
The human brain autofluoresces—a funny thought next time you see a cartoon character with a bright idea and a light bulb over his head—but not so funny if you are attempting immunofluorescence analysis. But there are some significant advantages to using fluorescence detection over chromogenic methods. In this article, I will cover the advantages of…
For several decades, Ethidium Bromide (EtBr) was the molecular biologist’s default dye for DNA staining. Now, EtBr is being consigned to the history books. It’s time to have a historical look at where it all started.
Over the past few decades the mammalian cell cycle has been well documented. Although there are lots of checkpoints as cells move through the cycle, we can very simply divide the cell cycle into three stages according to the DNA content in the nucleus. When cells are either quiescent or not dividing they have the…
The sub-G1 assay for measuring apoptosis is easy, rapid, reliable, reproducible, and cheap and is widely used. However, you need to understand the mechanics of the assay and the apoptotic process, otherwise you could over- or underestimate your apoptosis results!
Does your lab have a closet full of white elephants; once expensive instruments that are no longer fit for purpose, or have broken down? In many cases, all of that wasted money and resource could have been saved if the buyers had made smart choices about matching the instrument more closely to their needs. A…
Alu sequences are repetitive DNA sequences that are widely dispersed within the human genome. These “junk DNAs” are not as useless as one might think. An interesting method to use them is to quantify the number of integrated Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) genome copies using Alu-PCR.
I’m sure many of us are aware that the world of cancer research is exploding with the idea of cancer stem cells. This exciting hypothesis suggests that there is a small population of cells in the tumor that have stem cell-like properties. These stem-like cells are able to proliferate and differentiate into all the different…
Whether you’re already in the field or an undergrad looking to enter the scene, here are some great places to keep up to date with the latest news and trends in stem cells. Listen About It For auditory learners, or people that listen to music on their way to the lab, you could switch it…
What do you use if antibodies are too large for super resolution microscopy? Aptamers. These are small affinity reagents (~ 2 nm!) that interact with their target in the same way as an antibody, but without the hefty backbone attached.
Ever wonder what those small colonies, like satellites, surrounding a larger E. coli colony on your LB with ampicillin plates were? Or why, when you picked that colony, it never had the plasmid you just transformed? Well, it’s because those satellite colonies are “protected” from the ampicillin by the big colony. Read on for more… Ampicillin…
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