Impact of DNA extraction, PCR amplification, sequencing, and bioinformatic analysis on food-associated mock communities using PacBio long-read amplicon sequencing

This study underlines the importance of benchmarking studies with mock communities representing the habitat of interest to evaluate the methodology prior to analyzing real samples of unknown composition. It demonstrates the advantage of long-read sequencing over short-read sequencing, as species level identification enables in-depth characterization of the habitat. One benefit is improved risk assessment by enabling differentiation between pathogenic and apathogenic species of the same genus.