Materials and Reagents

1. Two oligonucleotides which form the double-stranded adapter, with an overhang complementary to the overhand of the restriction enzyme used. In the case of Mse I, the overhang is a 5' TA, and the adapter sequences are 5'- TACTCAGGACTCAT-3' and 5'- GACGATGAGTCCTGAG-3'. The two nucleotides at the 5' end of the former oligonucleotide will constitute the 5' TA overhang, after hybridization of the two sequences (green rectangles in Figure 1). These oligonucleotides should be designed such that they do not resemble know sequences in the examined species.
   
2. Pre-selective primers, one complementary to the adapter with the addition of a C nucleotide at the 3' end (5'-GATGAGTCCTGAGTAAC-3'; primer P2 in Figure 1), and the other complementary to the TE of interest (primer P1 in Figure 1). The TE-specific primer should be designed as a reverse-complement of the 5' end of the TE with a Tm=60 °C, between 30-50 bp into the TE (to allow for sequence validation in downstream assays). Restriction enzyme recognition sites (TTAA) between the primer and the 5' end of the TE should be avoided. Both the adapter- and TE-specific primers should be designed with the linker A and B sequences (for 454-pyrosequencing) at their 5' ends.
   
3. NaCl
   
4. T4 DNA ligase and buffer (New England Biolabs, catalog number: M0202 )
   
5. Restriction enzyme MseI (New England Biolabs, catalog number: R0525 )
   
6. Taq DNA polymerase and Taq DNA polymerase buffer (EURx, catalog number: E2500 )
   
7. MgCl₂
   
8. dNTP mix
   
   
   Figure 1. An overview of the TD-454 pyrosequencing method. (a) The genomic samples are fragmented with a restriction enzyme and ligated to adapters (green rectangles); (b) The fragments undergo PCR with a primer specific to the adapter (containing a 454 linker sequence) and a primer specific to the analyzed TE (containing a 454 linker sequence); (c) The resulting PCR amplicons are sequenced with a 454 pyrosequencer.

Equipment

1. Thermal cycler

Procedure