Reference-free resolving of long-read metagenomic data

Here, we apply an alignment-free method (kPal) that leverages on k-mer frequencies to classify reads within a single long read metagenomic dataset. In addition to a series of simulated metagenomic datasets, we generated sequencing data from a bioreactor microbiome using the PacBio RSII single-molecule real-time sequencing platform. We show that distances obtained after the comparison of k-mer profiles can reveal relationships between reads within a single metagenome, leading to a clustering per species.