I need to extract DNA from ants for posterior Illumina sequencing, but I do not know which extraction protocol would be fit for the task.
After reading Gadau (2009), I'm considering the use of Phenol–Chloroform, but I wonder if there are better alternatives.
I have workers from different sizes (3 - 20 mm) and some larvae. Does anyone know of a protocol that yields good-quality DNA in a quantity that would be suitable for sequencing?
Thanks! :)
I haven't done ants but I have done flies. Crush in lysis buffer, phenol chloroform extract and precipitate using ammonium acetate and ethanol. Once you have your DNA, if its not clean enough you could use column to clean it up or run out on a gel, cut out the band and purify the band using a kit too. Just make sure you use a lot of starting material since they are small and you will lose quite a bit in the process.
I used a CTAB based method with some modifications to extract DNA from plants and insects and worked good, plant DNA extracted with that method was used for Illumina sequencing with good results.
Attached the description of the method in M & M section.
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