[DIYbio] competence in e. coli

I posting this as another question in the form of "I must be crazy, please correct me." My understanding of induced competence in e. coli is that it involves creating a new culture in LB medium, soaking in a CaCl solution (other components can be added for the perfectionist), cooling and then heat shocking, as well as being very gentle with the cells (no vortexing, etc). I know that many companies sell e. coli cultures that have been deemed competent, but is there any reason why using the above procedure on new cultures from other sources which are incompetent would not yield competent cells?

 

My problem with the standard lab method of simply ordering competent cells is (besides the obvious expense factor), that I don't have any means of storing the competent cells I receive at -80C, which I'm told destroys the company's competence work anyways. Also, I've discovered that I can obtain cultures for the Coli Genetic Stock Center at Yale for substantially less (less than half that which New England Biolabs charges, and the price for extra strains in the same order increases te savings exponentially). It seems like I must be missing something somewhere, because it doesn't make sense that large labs wouldn't induce competence themselves (unless it's just a time saving and quality assurance factor).

 

Also note that I have read that most "home" induced competence jobs yield a lower transformation rate, but figure that with selection and time to grow cultures I should be able to yield a decent number of transformed cells in the end, and in the case of everything I will be doing in the next half year, there is no product I'm looking to yield (unless I get into cubcloning), just the confirmation that my transformed plasmid works.

 

Someone please set me straight, and as always, I apologize for the simple question, and deeply appreciate the time spent answering my questions.

 

Jonathan Nesser