OP data is amplicon, probably 16S.
I have two microbiome datasets which are sequenced from different sites within the environment. I would to like to identify amplicon sequence variants inferred using DADA2 which are shared between the two datasets and also those which are unique. The problem is i'm not 100% sure of the best way to do this. So far I have tried megablast and just looking at exact matches between the two datasets but perhaps there is a better way of doing this, for example another alignment tool or alignment free method but unfortunately I don't have the experience to be able to decide on the best method. Does anyone with more experience of working with microbiome data know of a better way?
2 answers
You can use cd-hit-est-2d for this task. The VSEARCH wiki also has an example on how to use it to (among other things) compare datasets.
You may use sliding window approach to align windowed sequence from one genome onto the other genome.
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"amplicon sequence variants " - you mean the common and different variants between two datasets ? Does your organism has reference genome available ?
The term is just what dada2 use to refer to each individual 16S rRNA sequence representing a "species" of bacteria, they are not variants in the genetics sense. Essentially yes, I wish to find the common and differing sequences between the two datasets.