Long-read tagmentation unlocks scalable, cost-effective, HiFi metagenomics from low-input DNA

Long-read metagenomic sequencing with HiFi remains costly and requires large amounts (ug) of DNA thus limiting the applications to few sample types like soil, feces and filtered water. Here we present a long-read tagmentation and amplification based library preparation approach which reduces per sample library preparation costs by 76-87% and DNA input requirements (from 1000 ng to 30-75 ng). We validate the utility of this approach on simple and complex microbial communities comparing sequencing statistics, microbial diversity analyses, and recovery of metagenome-assembled genomes.