Electroporation of 3T3-L1 Adipocytes

Materials

Differentiated cells FBS day 3 or less. If cells are difficult to trypsinize, they will not recover well.
- To calculate the number of cells, use 1 - 15cm dish per final dish (10cm/6well/12well).
- For example for 2 knockdowns, each being seeded in 6 - 12 well sized wells, use 1 dish, and 2 electroporations.
Gene Pulser cuvette
DNA: CsCl Purified or siRNA (resuspended to 0.1 nmol/uL with 200 uL water)
PBS +/+
PBS -/-
0.25% Trypsin
L1 FBS Media

Warm media and PBS but not trypsin in water bath
Wash cells twice with PBS (-/-), then trypsinize and with 2 mL 0.25% trypsin in the incubator
When cells have fallen off the plate, add 9 mL Media and pipet into a 15 mL falcon tube
Spin at 2000 RPM for 5 min.
Wash cells with PBS +/+
Reuspend cells to a final volume of 0.5 mL per electroporation in PBS +/+
500 uL of cells is mixed with 50-200 ug of DNA (or 5 uL siRNA) in a 0.4 cm cuvette. These volumes are for half of a final plate of cells. Scale up or down accordingly.
Electroporate at 160V and 950 uF
Add 1 mL media to cuvette and transfer to a 15 mL tube with media for 10 min. The amount of media should correspond to the final volume of plated cells (ie one electroporation of half a plate of cells would go into 6 mL final volume of media).
Aspirate floating debris before replating
Bring up tube to final required volume, mix and plate