title: ITS-1 Amplicon sequencing:  Sterile-sucrose-buffer control Gulf of Mexico study
design: The amplicons were obtained by two-PCR  approach. The first PCR was made following a touchdown PCR to obtain the ITS1  amplicons, using the ITS1F and ITS2 primets with Illumina adaptor attached.  The PCR products were purified. The second PCR was performed to attach the  indexex (i7 and i5) to their respective samples, for subsequent  identification. The PCR products were normalized and pooled.