FAQ: Which strain of Competent E.coli should I use for general cloning?

NEB 5-alpha Competent E. coli (NEB #C2987) is a high efficiency derivative of DH5α™, the industry standard cloning strain. NEB Turbo Competent E. coli (NEB #C2984) and NEB 5-alpha F´I^q Competent E. coli (NEB #C2992) allow potentially toxic genes to be cloned due to tight control of expression by lacI^q and are suitable for blue/white screening. NEB Turbo Competent E. coli (NEB #C2984) brings unmatchable speed to your transformations with visible colonies after just 6.5 hours and plasmid preparation capability after 4 hours. NEB 10-beta Competent E. coli (NEB #C3019) is a derivative of DH10B™ and can be used for transforming large plasmids and BACs. Dam^-/dcm^- Competent E. coli (NEB #C2925) can be used for methylation-free plasmid growth.

If cloning efficiency is negatively affected by repetitive DNA elements in the vector or insert sequence, then NEB Stable Competent E. coli (NEB #C3040) is recommended. (See Protocol for cloning DNA containing repeat elements).

Not sure which cloning strain to choose? The NEB Cloning Competent E.coli Sampler  (NEB #C1010) allows you to sample 4 of our popular chemically competent strains.