To begin, inoculate Limosilactobacillus reuteri DSM20016 from glycerol stock into six milliliters of De Man, Rogosa, Sharpe, or MRS broth, in a 50 milliliter tube. Incubate the culture aerobically overnight at 37 degrees Celsius in a static incubator. The next day, inoculate four milliliters of the overnight culture into 200 milliliters of MRS broth.
Allow the culture to grow aerobically in a static 37 degrees Celsius incubator until the optical density at 600 nanometers reaches 0.5 to 0.85. Next, decant the culture into 50 milliliter centrifuge tubes and place them on ice while balancing the tubes. Centrifuge the culture in a pre chilled centrifuge and discard the supernatant.
Before resuspending the pellet in 50 milliliters of prechilled double distilled water, repeat the centrifugation two times. After the last centrifugation, resuspend the pellet in 25 milliliters of double distilled water, 0.5 molar sucrose, and 10%glycerol. Centrifuge the cell suspension, discard the supernatant, and resuspend the pellet in two milliliters of double distilled water, 0.5 molar sucrose, and 10%glycerol on ice.
Aliquot the suspension into 50 to 100 microliter portions in prechilled microcentrifuge tubes and store the tubes at minus 80 degrees Celsius for later use. Next, for electroporation, thaw an aliquot of electrocompetent cells on ice. Mix five to 10 microliters of the plasmid into the thawed aliquot avoiding pipetting as much as possible.
Transfer the mixture to an ice chilled one milliliter gap electroporation cuvette and electroporate at 1.25 kilovolts, 400 ohms, and 25 microfarads. After electroporation, add one milliliter of MRS broth and mix by inverting the cuvette once or twice. Place the cuvettes into a static 37 degree Celsius incubator for 2.5 to three hours for recovery.
Next, plate the entire suspension onto multiple MRS auger plates with appropriate selection. Place the plates inside an airtight container with a small lit candle in an anaerobic atmosphere generating sachet. Grow at 37 degrees Celsius for two to three days or until visible colonies appear.
Electroporation of L.reuteri with constitutive mCherry2 producing pTRKH3 plasmid gives transformation efficiencies of roughly five to eight colonies per 200 microliters plated regardless of the plasmid methylation condition. Transformation with pNZ123 carrying no exogenous constitutive reporter protein yielded transformation efficiencies of three times 10 to the four CFU per microgram of DNA.
