Since publishing the proposal...

 

Pre-purification agarose gel image of a trial amplicon & index PCRs using sequencing primers designed in-house

While waiting to raise the requisite funds, we have been exploring protocol options that will help us implement the project on budget. To this extent we designed and optimized metabarcoding sequencing primers compatible with Illumina platform utilizing truseq adapters that we already had in the laboratory. With the grant cheque having been received by our custodian in the US and awaiting its cashing, this last week we have completed preparing the first batch of libraries and shipped to Macrogen, the Netherlands, for sequencing.