Bacterial Plasmid Selection: Selects for kanamycin-resistant plasmids in Escherichia coli and other bacteria during cloning and propagation.

Recombinant Clone Screening: Enables selection of transformed colonies after chemical transformation or electroporation in E. coli.

Protein Expression Strain Maintenance: Maintains kanamycin-marked expression vectors in E. coli for recombinant protein production.

Bacterial Genetics and Knockouts: Selects kanamycin resistance cassettes for gene disruptions, transposon mutagenesis, and allelic exchange in bacteria.

Microbial Library Preservation: Maintains plasmid and genomic libraries by preventing loss of kanamycin-marked constructs in E. coli.

Selective Plating and Mating Experiments: Used on agar plates to recover kanamycin-resistant colonies in conjugation and co-transformation workflows.

Plant Tissue Culture Selection: Selects transformed plant cells expressing nptII (kanR) following Agrobacterium-mediated transformation; suppresses non-transformed tissue.

Contamination Control in Cell Culture: Helps prevent bacterial contamination in mammalian and insect cell culture media.