Preparation of BAC libraries from marine microbial populations.

A protocol is presented here for the construction of BAC (bacterial artificial chromosome) libraries from planktonic microbial communities collected in marine environments. The protocol describes the collection and preparation of the planktonic microbial cells, high molecular weight DNA purification from those cells, the preparation of the BAC vector, and the special ligation and electrotransformation procedures required for successful library preparation. With small modifications, this protocol can be applied to microbes collected from other environments.