Hello Everybody,

I am in the process of extracting a natural plasmid containing the CTX-M 1 gene. I do not know what plasmid (type/Inc etc) is present in my sample but I have been successful in extracting it. I am now trying to do a restriction digest in order to successfully digest said plasmid, however I am running into problems.

I have digested my plasmid with the following endonucleases (in separate digests):

BamHI, BsuRI, EcoRI, HindIII and XbaI

I have attached a picture of what my gel looks like. There are no distinct bands present on the gel, just tens of smaller ones that are almost indistinguishable from a smear.

What could it mean for you? What could have gone wrong?

Any suggestions or advice would be greatly appreciated.