Assembling small DNA parts using Golden Gate
Purely going off experience here having used golden gate assembly methods for 5+ years now, there is a definite lack of literature regarding small part assemblies. In my current lab, we use CIDAR MoClo (a golden gate method) and have assembled 100's of constructs successfully with parts as small as ~ 70 bp. However, when we assemble smaller parts we tend to increase the amount of this part compared to bigger parts. For example, we dilute each part to 10 fmol ready for assembly as a basis for all assemblies, this then allows us to play with the ratios and quickly optimise reactions. So as a standard, when the part is small we automatically start with at least a 3:1 instead of 1:1, where we put 3x the volume of the small part compared to others in the assembly. This usually helps, but on top of that we try to increase transformation efficiency by using SOC media and generally avoid building parts &lt; 100 bp. e.g. we don't tend to use promoters and RBS separately we make larger combined parts containing both.