Preparation of Illumina 16s Amplicon Sequencing Libraries with Peptide Nucleic Acids (PNAs) for the Analysis of Maize-Associated Microbiomes

One of the most common methods to survey bacterial communities is targeted amplification of the hypervariable regions of the 16s rRNA gene followed by sequencing. This protocol details Illumina library preparation of such amplicons from communities isolated from maize. We include both staggered PCR primers to improve Illumina base calling and peptide nucleic acids (PNAs) to reduce the presence of plant organelles. Primers are designed with Illumina adapter sequences for the addition of sample-specific indexes (barcodes). We also briefly discuss alternative primer sets, including ones that directly discriminate against plant organelles or that amplify different organisms (e.g., fungal internal transcribed spacer [ITS] sequences).