In: Biology
16S rRNA utilizes PCR to target amplify portions of the hypervariable regions (V1-V9) of the bacterial 16S rRNA gene.Amplicons from separate samples are then given molecular barcodes,pooled together and sequenced.
Unlike 16S sequencing,which only target 16S rRNA genes,shotgun sequencing sequences all given genomic DNA from a sample.It includes random fragmentation and adapter ligation.
Overall shotgun has greater taxonomy resolution, functional profiling and cross-domain coverage.In all other aspects including price and sample origin compatibility,16S sequencing has the advantage.