Replica plating of mammalian cells using low melt agarose.

We have developed a technique to replica plate mammalian cells grown on plastic dishes using low melt agarose. This method is simpler than previously described methods that use polyester membranes to grow and transfer cells. We have tested the effectiveness of this technique on normal and immortal cell lines and have found that we can transfer cells with an efficiency of 80-90%. We have used this technique to rapidly screen clones for insertion of a lentivirally encoded gene without a selectable marker.