10481018 - FAQs

Do Elongase and Platinum Taq High Fidelity enzymes leave a 3'-A overhang on the PCR product for subsequent cloning into a TOPO TA Cloning or original TA vectors? What about Platinum Pfx polymerase?

Elongase and Platinum Taq High Fidelity polymerase mixes do leave 3' A overhangs on a portion of the PCR products, however, the cloning efficiency is greatly reduced from that obtained with Taq polymerase alone. Platinum Pfx polymerase does not leave 3' A overhangs. Therefore, with all proofreading enzymes or enzyme mixes that contain proofreading polymerases, we recommend that you treat the PCR product with Taq at the end of the PCR reaction, prior to TA cloning. To do this, add 1 U of Taq to a 50 µL reaction and incubate at 68-72 degrees C for 15 min. Phenol extract and ethanol precipitate the product before TA cloning.

Additional notes: The cloning efficiency decreases with increasing size of PCR products. For larger PCR fragments, we recommend that you gel-purify the PCR product and screen several clones. PCR primers should be designed with a 5' G, since Taq leaves a 3' A overhang preferentially on DNA ending in C.
Reference: Hu (1993) DNA and Cell Biology 12:763.
TA Cloning reference: Mead, D.A., Pey, N.K., Herrnstadt, C., Marcil, R.A., and Smith, L.M. (1991) BioTechnology 9, 657.