Two gloved hands holding an electroporation cuvette

We offer a variety of universal-fit Invitrogen electroporation cuvettes for use with E. coli, yeast, and mammalian cells. Our electroporation cuvettes are available in several gap widths for optimal transformation efficiency for your specific cell type.

Advantages of Invitrogen electroporation cuvettes

Invitrogen electroporation cuvettes are precision built from high quality material to provide optimal transformation efficiency of foreign DNA into host bacterial, yeast, and mammalian cells. The cuvettes are compatible with all standard electroporation devices on the market. The advantages of these cuvettes include:

  • The chamber design reduces the chance of introducing bubbles into the sample
  • Allows direct recovery of cells in the cuvette
  • Individually wrapped and gamma irradiated for sterility
  • Color coded cuvette caps to identify gap widths


Electroporation cuvette selection guide

Invitrogen electroporation cuvettes are available in gap widths of 0.1 cm, 0.2 cm, and 0.4 cm; the cuvette caps are color coded for gap width. Table 1 lists the compatibility between the cuvette gap width and cell type.  The cuvettes are sterilized with gamma irradiation, individually wrapped, and packaged in a bag of 50.

Table 1. Electroporation cuvette gap width and cell type suitability


Can you re-use electroporation cuvettes?

We do not recommend re-using electroporation cuvettes because washing cannot guarantee removal of all foreign DNA, and cuvettes cannot be easily sterilized. Also, metal plates are oxidized during the electroporation pulse so the same transformation efficiency cannot be achieved.


What are the minimal and maximal operating volumes?

  • 1 mm gap cuvettes: 20 to 100 µL
  • 2 mm gap cuvettes: 40 to 400 µL
  • 4 mm gap cuvettes: 200 to 800 µL

Follow the optimized protocols for the cells and cuvettes that you are using.


Competent cells: Featured products

In addition to competent cells, we offer a broad suite of products for the cloning workflow.


Resources

Have any questions on competent cells or transformation? Click on the resources listed below to access overviews, videos, genotype guides, and educational resources.

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Stay up-to-date on industry trends in molecular cloning with on-demand webinars.

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Short articles and digital handbook for cloning applications