Method for fragmenting and ligating adaptors onto a nucleic acid, and kit for performing the same

1. A method for preparing a nucleic acid for sequencing, comprising:

a) amplifying a nucleic acid template using a dNTP mix that contains 5-methyl dCTP, thereby producing product nucleic acid molecules that contain methylcytosines;

b) digesting the product nucleic acid molecules with a MspJI family restriction endonuclease, thereby cleaving the product nucleic acid molecules at sites that are adjacent to at least some of the methylcytosines and producing fragments of the product nucleic acid molecules that contain four-base 5′ overhangs; and

c) directly ligating double-stranded adaptors onto the 5′ overhangs of the fragments to produce adaptor-ligated products.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

d) amplifying the fragments using primers that hybridize to the adaptors to produce amplification products.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the amplifying step a) is an isothermal amplification.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the amplifying step a) is by PCR.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the product nucleic acid molecules of a) are at least 500 bp in length.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the nucleic acid template is a microbial genome.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein the microbial genome is a viral genome or a bacterial genome.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the nucleic acid template is a mammalian genome.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the amplifying step a) is done using a proof-reading polymerase.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the dNTP mix contains both 5-methyl dCTP and dCTP.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein the molar ratio of 5-methyl dCTP to dCTP in the nucleotide mix is in the range of 0.01 to 99.9.

12. The method of claim 1 , wherein the double-stranded adaptors of step c) comprise a four base 5′ overhang of random sequence.

13. The method of claim 1 , wherein the restriction endonuclease is selected from the group consisting of FspEI, LpnPI, MspJI, and Sgel.

14. The method of claim 1 , wherein the digesting step b) comprises digesting the product nucleic acid molecules with a plurality of different MspJI family restriction endonucleases.

15. The method of claim 1 , wherein the fragments produced in b) are in the range of 150 bp to 1 kb in length.

16. The method of claim 1 , further comprising sequencing the adaptor-ligated products of c) or amplification products thereof.

17. The method of claim 1 , wherein the digesting and ligating occur simultaneously in the same reaction.

18. The method of claim 1 , wherein the amplification step a) is done using one or more primers that contain at least one methylcytosine.

19. A kit comprising:

a) a dNTP mix that contains at least 5-methyl dCTP;

b) one or more MspJI family restriction endonucleases; and

c) double-stranded adaptors that comprise a four-base 5′ overhang.

20. The kit of claim 19 , wherein the dNTP mix contains both 5-methyl dCTP and dCTP.

21. The kit of claim 20 , wherein the molar ratio of 5-methyl dCTP to dCTP in the nucleotide mix is in the range of 0.01 to 99.9.

22. The kit of claim 19 , further comprising a polymerase and a ligase.

23. The kit of claim 19 , wherein the polymerase is a proof-reading polymerase.

24. The kit of claim 19 , wherein the one or more MspJI family restriction endonucleases are selected from the group consisting of FspEI, LpnPI, MspJI, and Sgel.

25. The kit of claim 19 , wherein the double-stranded adaptors of c) comprise a four base 5′ overhang of random sequence.

26. The kit of claim 19 , further comprising a primer that comprises methylcytosine.

27. The method of claim 1 , wherein the method is done in the absence of nick translation.