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Environmental health

Explore and understand the diversity, function, and dynamics of our planet’s ecosystems

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ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH SOLUTIONS

HiFi sequencing delivers data of exceptional breadth and accuracy to address complex challenges in environmental health. From characterizing diverse microbial communities across soil, water, and host-associated environments to uncovering the functional potential and interactions that shape ecosystem health, HiFi enables a more complete understanding of the natural world.

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Microbial WGS

Sequence entire microbial genomes and plasmids to understand host-microbe dynamics.

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Full-length 16S, ITS, and other rRNA sequencing

Profile bacteria or microeukaryotes in complex communities with species-level resolution.

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Metagenome sequencing

Characterize soil, water, plant, and animal microbial communities.

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Viral sequencing

Detect and fully phase viral populations to understand global threats to plant and animal health.

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Understand and protect ecosystems and environmental health

Climate change, pollution, and habitat disruption are reshaping ecosystems across the planet. To address these challenges, it is essential to characterize the diversity, function, and interactions of organisms across environmental systems, from microbes to complex communities. Our sequencing tools support multiomic approaches across microbiology, ecology, metagenomics, and environmental health research.

  • Reveal virulence and resistance potentials for pathogens with more complete whole genome information.
  • Achieve species- and strain level resolution to profile bacteria, fungi, and other eukaryotes
  • Generate among the highest quality and most complete MAGs per Gb compared to other sequencing technologies

COMMON ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH QUESTIONS THAT HIFI SEQUENCING CAN HELP ANSWER

HiFi long reads improve taxonomic resolution in complex samples, enabling more accurate detection of rare and low-abundance species.

The combination of long read length and high accuracy allows HiFi sequencing to resolve small genetic differences, supporting confident species- and strain-level identification.

HiFi reads support precise taxonomic profiling while also capturing full length genes, providing insight into both community composition and functional potential.

HiFi metagenomics enables recovery of high quality, near complete genomes directly from complex samples without the need for reference databases.

Introducing the Vega system – HiFi sequencing within reach

Bring the power of HiFi to every corner of the globe with the first benchtop PacBio long-read sequencing platform.

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How HiFi metagenomic sequencing is powering AI-driven discovery with Basecamp Research

Basecamp Research’s recent selection of PacBio HiFi sequencing to support its Trillion Gene Atlas initiative highlights an important shift in biological AI: the future will not be shaped by…

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Cryptic Insect Microbiome Compositions Unveiled with Full-Length 16S Sequencing

HiFi full-length 16S sequencing revealed strain-level microbiome differences in Mediterranean fruit flies that short-read methods missed.

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EXPLORE

Did you know we have a library of articles, reports, and papers?

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Microbial WGS

Embark on a deeper exploration of microbial diversity with long, high-quality genomic reads to better understand bacteria, fungi, and other microorganisms. From complete genome assemblies that reveal antimicrobial resistance and metabolic potential, to comparative analyses that uncover evolutionary relationships across strains, HiFi sequencing helps resolve microbial biology with exceptional accuracy.

  • Build reference-quality, complete microbial genomes to better understand species, strains, and their functions.
  • Reveal SNPs, indels, and structural variants that drive adaptation, resistance, and phenotypic diversity.
  • Capture genomic variation across isolates and populations to study microbial evolution and environmental dynamics.

Full-length 16S, ITS, and other rRNA sequencing

Capture a more complete picture of microbial communities with long reads that span full-length marker genes. Across soil, water, and host-associated samples, HiFi sequencing enables species- and strain-level resolution beyond what short read approaches can provide.

  • Profile bacterial and fungal communities with full-length 16S, ITS, and other rRNA sequencing.
  • Identify closely related species and strains with high-accuracy long reads.
  • Characterize community composition across diverse environmental and host-associated samples.

 

Metagenome sequencing

Analyze complex environmental samples with long, high-quality reads that enable genome resolved metagenomics. HiFi sequencing supports recovery of complete genomes and functional insights directly from mixed microbial communities without reliance on references.

Recover high quality, near complete genomes directly from complex environmental samples.
Resolve repeats and separate closely related organisms within mixed communities.
Characterize functional potential and diversity across microbiomes at scale.

Viral sequencing

Understand viral diversity with long, high-quality reads that provide a more complete view of viral genomes and their interactions with hosts. From environmental viromes to host-associated viruses, HiFi sequencing enables detailed characterization of viral evolution and function.

Generate complete viral genomes to study diversity, evolution, and transmission.
Detect variation across viral populations, including SNPs and structural changes.
Investigate virus-host interactions across environmental and public health contexts.

Computational tools

COMPUTATIONAL TOOLS ACCELERATE METAGENOMIC DISCOVERY

PacBio provides open-source metagenomics tools and workflows designed specifically for HiFi sequencing data, including pipelines for taxonomic profiling, functional analysis, and recovery of high-quality metagenome assembled genomes (MAGs). The pb-metagenomics-tools resource includes reproducible workflows, tutorials, benchmarking datasets, and visualization utilities to help researchers get started with genome resolved metagenomics using HiFi reads.

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Pricing tables

Application Vega system
(60 Gb x 1 SMRT Cell in 24 hrs.)
Revio with SPRQ-Nx chemistry
(120 Gb x 4 SMRT Cell in 24 hrs.)
Microbial WGS
(2 Gb total)
384 isolates
~30x coverage
~$43a | ~$48b | ~$26c
384 isolates
~50x coverage
~$42a | ~$47b | ~$25c
Metagenome profiling 64 communities
~0.75 Gb
~$58a | ~$64b | ~$44c
128 communities
~0.75 Gb
~$46a | ~$51b | ~$32c
Metagenome assembly 8 communities
~7 Gb
~$195d | ~$190b | ~$173c
16 communities
~6 Gb
~$102d | ~$95b | ~$74c
Full-length 16S rRNA Standard 16S
384 communities
~10k reads
~$5
Kinnex 16S
1,152 communities
~30k reads
~$4
Standard 16S
384 communities
~20k reads
~$4
Kinnex 16S
1,536 communities
~45k reads
~$3
Viral sequencing >1000 amplicons
<$5
>1000 amplicons
<$5

*Study design, sample type, and level of multiplexing may affect the number of SMRT Cells required. All prices are listed in USD and cost may vary by region. Pricing includes library and sequencing reagents run on your Vega or Revio systems and does not include instrument amortization, other reagents, or DNA extraction.

Currently available SMRTbell barcoded adapter plates contains 384 SMRTbell barcoded adapters. Microbial de novo assembly assumes microbes with ~2 Gb of total genome size per SMRT Cell.

a Using PacBio HiFi plex prep kit 96; b Using Ampli-Fi protocol for low-input (loss of methylation); c Using seqWell LongPlex kit (for metagenomics, PCR has loss of methylation); dUsing HiFi prep kit 96

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