Staining colonies in soft agar - how?? need fixation?? (Jan/05/2005 )

I am using a soft agar protocol to assess cellular transformation following transfection with my oncogene of interest. I am doing this by plating the transfected cells onto a thin layer of 1% agar. The colonies formed are clearly visable to the naked eye so i can count them easily. however, i would like to stain the plates to take some pretty pics...


any ideas very welcome...

thanks...

Hello,

I am planning to do some colony formation assay as well.
I got the protocol from 'Bio Protocol' website.
They suggested just stain the plates with 0.005% crystal violet for >1 hr.
Hope this helps.

P.S.
Just a quick question about how you plate and prepare your agar. What kind of agar do you use and I guess the agar plates need to be sterile? (i.e. autoclaved and pour in the hood?)

Thanks~~