Vigorous shaking for HFR interrupted mating

Question

I am trying to reproduce E. coli interrupted mating using an HFR strain, and I read that the cultures should be vigorously shaken at times to interrupt the DNA transfer from the F+(HFR) donors to the F- cells.

How vigorously(I'm OK with a qualitative answer) should I shake the culture for optimal results?

Answer 1

I remember doing this experiment many years ago in an undergraduate practical where we used vigorous vortexing of culture samples in glass tubes to achieve interruption and separation.

According to Griffiths AJF, Gelbart WM, Miller JH, et al. Modern Genetic Analysis. Bacterial Conjugation:

... sampling is accomplished by using a kitchen blender to separate the joined cells, resulting in interrupted conjugation.