Registry FAQ

From partsregistry.org

Welcome to the Registry FAQ!
If you have any questions that still need answering, post them in our FAQ Sandbox and we'll answer them ASAP

1 Getting Started
2 Using Registry Parts
- 2.1 Why didn't the Registry include some of their empty resistance plasmids in the DNA shipment?
3 Interface Troubleshooting

Getting Started

Where are the parts?

The "jump to" box

You can access the Registry's parts by browsing Part Types. From here, click on the desired category (or the (?) right next to the name to get more help on what that category means). Then you will be able to view parts in Part Tables.
If you already know the name of the part that you're looking for, you can get to a single part by typing the name of the part in the upper right hand corner in the "jump to" box.

What do these crazy names mean?

Each part is assigned its own unique name starting with a letter describing its defined category and ending in a number sequence. Note that Plasmids have their own nomenclature.

Everything's constantly changing!

The Registry undergoes one major update a year prior to the start of the iGEM. There will be no new major changes in the interface until next May.
This being said, the Registry is a wiki, and as such is always being updated and improved by the community. Some ways to deal with changes is to:

Keep an eye on recent changes to the wiki
Use the 'watch' option on pages that you deem important
Remember that change is exciting and an avenue for progress!

How can I contribute to the Registry?

Glad you asked! There's lots of ways that you can help the Registry. Since the Registry is now a wiki, all registered users can edit content. To learn how, try the tutorial!
The Registry depends on users like you to add their knowledge about parts, their experience with parts, and parts themselves into the database.

Using Registry Parts

Why didn't the Registry include some of their empty resistance plasmids in the DNA shipment?

While there were a few plasmid (backbones) shipped out, it's true we haven't included many bare plasmids. However, some the plasmids which we HAVE included instead are specialized construction plasmids designed to help you clone constructs into them in the following way:

Once you've transformed your plasmids into a cell, it's hard to figure out which clones have actually been successful in acquiring the new DNA without checking individual colonies.
To aid you in selecting for these successful clones, we've included several plasmids with the BBa_P1010 BioBrick. Each plasmid features the part BBa_P1010 along with one or more resistance markers (Amp, Kan, Amp/Kan, Amp/Cm, Amp/Tet). This ccdB gene (BBa_P1010) is currently housed between the BioBrick restriction sites within a cell host (DB3.1) which tolerates the gene's presence. However, should this plasmid containing the ccdB gene be transformed into a cell type of a different strain (ie. DH10B), the gene would cause cell death.
Thus you could take the BBa_P1010 cells from the last shipment and
1. purify the plasmids
2. restrict at the biobrick restriction sites
3. ligate in your gene
4. transform into a DH10B cell line...
5. and the successful cells will have the ccdB gene cut out, and thus will live. On the other hand, all of the cells which were never restricted to begin with or which re-ligated with the ccdB inserts, will die within the DH10B cell line after transformation...

Thus you will have only successful clones surviving on your plate! Since you will be excising out the ccdB gene in order to insert your new gene of interest, the ccdB gene will no longer be part of the plasmid, and you won't have to worry about its presence interfering with any of your future experiments!

You can find these ccdB parts in your last BioBricks shipment on the "physical DNA" tab of the P1010 part page here

Update: A new set of low copy plasmids is now available with the default inserts of either BBa_I52001 or BBa_I52002 (both of which include the toxic ccdB gene just like BBa_P1010). You can find these new plasmids in the most recent BioBricks shipment on the "physical DNA" tab of BBa_I52001 and BBa_I52002.

For more on this topic, visit our Help:Plasmids documentation
and our Featured Parts:Cell Death highlight on ccdB parts!