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. 2021 Mar 10;97(3):fiab001.
doi: 10.1093/femsec/fiab001.

Is Oxford Nanopore sequencing ready for analyzing complex microbiomes?

Lee J Kerkhof  1
Affiliations

Is Oxford Nanopore sequencing ready for analyzing complex microbiomes?

Lee J Kerkhof. FEMS Microbiol Ecol. .

Abstract

This minireview will discuss the improvements in Oxford Nanopore (Oxford; sequencing technology that make the MinION a viable platform for microbial ecology studies. Specific issues being addressed are the increase in sequence accuracy from 65 to 96.5% during the last 5 years, the ability to obtain a quantifiable/predictive signal from the MinION with respect to target molecule abundance, simple-to-use GUI-based pathways for data analysis and the modest additional equipment needs for sequencing in the field. Coupling these recent improvements with the low capital costs for equipment and the reasonable per sample cost makes MinION sequencing an attractive option for virtually any laboratory.

Keywords: 16S rRNA gene; MinION sequencing; antibiotic resistance gene; microbiome; ribosomal RNA operon.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Plot of publications in Web of Science using the search term ‘MinION’ from 2015 to 2019.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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