Iso-Seq of Camponotus floridanus minor worker antenna
Founding queens of Camponotus floridanus ants were collected from the Florida Keys in 2018 and raised to mature colonies in the laboratory at 25 C. A total of twelve biological samples were prepared from six colonies, consisting of two caste groups  major and minor workers (one sample of each from each colony). Each of the twelve samples was a pool of sixty antennae harvested from thirty individual ants belonging to the corresponding major or minor caste group. Total RNA was extracted from the collected antennae using the standard Trizol/Chloroform precipitation method. The purified RNA was dissolved in RNase-free water and stored at -80C until shipped on dry ice to the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences (QB3) Vincent J. Coates Genomics Sequencing Laboratory for isoform sequencing (Iso-Seq) using the Pacbio Kinnex protocol, in one SMRTcell of a Revio sequencer.