Transposon-Aided Capture of Antibiotic Resistance Plasmids from Complex Samples

Abstract

Transposon-aided capture of plasmids allows for antibiotic resistance plasmids to be acquired from complex samples. It is based on the insertion of a transposon, with a known origin of replication and selectable marker, into the plasmids present in a sample which can subsequently be captured after the removal of contaminating chromosomal DNA. Here we describe isolation of bacterial cells from a complex sample, DNA extraction, transposon-aided capture of plasmids in the sample, and analysis of the captured plasmids.