End-repair and dA-tailing were performed using the NEBNext Ultra II End-Repair/dA-tailing Module. In detail, 7 μL of Ultra II End-Prep buffer, 3 μL of Ultra II End-Prep enzyme mix, 5 μL of NFW, and ~ 1.2 μg of DNA were mixed and incubated at 20 °C for 20 min at first followed by another incubation at 65 °C for 15 min.
Sixty microliters of AMPure XP beads was used for purification.
Ligation was performed by adding 20 μL of Adaptor Mix and 50 μL of Blunt/TA Ligation Master Mix to the 30 μL of dA-tailed DNA and then incubation was performed at room temperature for 15 min.
Another purification for the removal of remaining adapters from the adapter-ligated DNA was conducted using 40 μL of AMPure XP beads and ABB buffer supplied in the kit. The purified-ligated DNA was resuspended using 25 μL of ELB, and then the concentration was measured by Qubit to ensure ≥ 500 ng of DNA was retained.