expressing a gene in a cell HELP - (Mar/03/2006 )

Hi...i need to express a plasmid that has my vector and insert to a cell? how do i do that?
is there any other technique besides calcium phospate precipitation...any kind of details would be appreciated...thanks...

What type of cell are you hoping to put your plasmid into?

If you want the express you plasmid in a bacterium then you can use eletrcoporation in addition to the heat shock method.
If it is mammalian or eukaryotic then there are plenty of lipid-based transfection technologies available. The most well known is Lipofectamine but I have used Promega's TransFast with good success.
The final options are using viruses. You can use adenovirus or baculovirus (which many people use to inject plasmids into sf9 insect cells).

Each and everyone of these techniques requires a different containment measure and specific licences with regards to genetic manipulation of organisms.

I you can provide more information then I can be more specific in both repects.