18S amplicon sequencing on the hindgut symbiont community of R. tibialis
DNA was extracted from the whole gut contents of live termites. Amplicon libraries were generated using a two step PCR protocol. The first PCR used gene specific primers with Illumina adaptor sequences, and the second PCR attached indexing barcodes to both ends of each amplicon. PCR products were purified using Ampure  magnetic beads in combination with the Beckman Biomek NXp robot and quantified using Qubit broad range dsDNA fluorescent dye (Invitrogen) on a Biotek HT1 Plate Reader. After quantification, samples were pooled at approximately equimolar concentrations and sequenced on the Illumina MiSeq platform.