Improved resolution of microbial diversity in deep-sea surface sediments using PacBio long-read 16S rRNA gene sequencing.

Unlabelled: 16S rRNA gene sequencing is the gold standard for identifying microbial diversity in environmental communities. The Illumina short-read platform is widely used in marine environment studies due to its cost-effectiveness and high accuracy, but its limited read length restricts taxonomic identification mainly to genus or family levels. Recently, the PacBio long-read sequencing platform was developed.