Polymerase chain reaction preparation of template for massively parallel pyrosequencing.

Massively parallel pyrosequencing of DNA fragments immobilized on beads has been applied to genome survey sequencing and transcriptome analysis of a variety of eukaryotic organisms, including laboratory model species, agricultural crops and livestock, and species of interest to population biologists and ecologists. Preparation of sufficient high-quality template for sequencing has been an obstacle to sequence analysis of nucleic acids from tissues or cell types available in limited quantities. We report that the use of a biotinylated primer for polymerase chain reaction amplification allows removal of excess primer and poly(A) tract fragments from the sequencing templates, providing much higher yields of useful sequence information from pyrosequencing of amplified templates.