Comparison of the performance of an amplicon sequencing assay based on Oxford Nanopore technology to real-time PCR assays for detecting bacterial biodefense pathogens

Based on these results, we propose amplicon sequencing assay as a viable alternative to replace the current real-time PCR based singleplex assays for higher throughput biodefense applications. We note, however, that targeted amplicon specific reads were not detectable even at the highest tested spike concentrations (2.5 X 10⁴-5.0 X10⁵ CFU/ml) without an initial amplification step, indicating that PCR is still necessary when utilizing this protocol.