SURE or Stbl competent cells for retroviral vector? - (Aug/22/2011 )

Hi,
I need to transform cells with my gene inserted in retroviral vector with LTRs. I read I should use specially designed strains of E. coli and I found two, SURE and SURE2 cells from Stratagene (Agilent) and Stbl3 and Stbl2 from Invitrogen.

They vary in genotype (Stbl3 is endA1+, SURE cells can be white/blue screened but question is if I actually need that), in efficiency, in aliquotes, special media requirement (NZY+ Broth for SURE2) and finally in price, Invitrogen ones are twice as expensive, but they claim they're better than SURE cells.

Have you got experience with these cells, do you know which one is better? Is Invitrogen worth the price or not?

i have no real experience in cloning into retroviral vectors but i heard that structural stability of those plasmids is poor in normal E. coli strains
i have checked the genotype ...and as far as i got it Stbl cells are good for direct repeats and retroviral vectors ...and SURE cells are more likely used for Z-DNA containing sequences and inverted repeats.

I would definitly go for the Stbl2 cells since they are endA minus ...and that gives you better plasmid yield and quality after successful cloning

Good luck!

Regards,
p

Thanks a lot pDNA, Stbl2 would be the best I guess.

Oops, I just noticed Molecular Cloning has now a separate subforum, I should have posted there. Since I'm going to do some subcloning you probably will see me there often