An improved approach for construction of bacterial artificial chromosome libraries.

Presented here are improved methodologies that enable the generation of highly redundant bacterial artificial chromosome/P1-derived artificial chromosome libraries, with larger and relatively uniform insert sizes. Improvements in vector preparation and enhanced ligation conditions reduce the number of background nonrecombinant clones. Preelectrophoresis of immobilized high-molecular-weight DNA removes inhibitors of the cloning process, while sizing DNA fragments twice within a single gel effectively eliminates small restriction fragments, thus increasing the average insert size of the clones. The size-fractionated DNA fragments are recovered by electroelution rather than the more common melting of gel slices with subsequent beta-agarase treatment. Concentration of the ligation products yields a 6- to 12-fold reduction in the number of electroporations required in preparing a library of desirable size. These improved methods have been applied to prepare PAC and BAC libraries from the human, murine, rat, canine, and baboon genomes with average insert sizes ranging between 160 and 235 kb.