Transformation of non-competent E. coli? - Any shortcut for preapring competent cells? (Dec/23/2008 )

I had read somwhere that bacterial transformation is a natural process. What we do by preapring competant cells is just increase transformation efficiency. On this background, has anybody tried transformation of non-competant E. coli with a plasmid? If yes, what was the transformation efficiency? And if not, what would be the transformation efficiency if such experiment is carried out? If transformation efficiency is low (obviously) and we have large amount of plasmid avialable, is there any shortcut for preapring competent cells?

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The natural transformation efficiency is supposed to be very low, so you have to plate huge number of plates in order to get a single colony. Perhaps thousands or millions. On the other hand, if you had no choice,

1. you can transform, first do liquid culture without antibiotic selection for an hour, grow large numbers of transformed bacteria in antibiotics selection, and then plate some. It will help if you see slight turbidity, but I doubt it will work.

2. Transform with GFP plasmid, grow a large number, do flow cytometry to sort out fluorescent ones. There may be a better chance here.

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Can you do bacteria flowcytometry? Aren't they too small??

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