A direct metamobilome approach increases the detection of larger-sized ciruclar DNA elements

Metamobilomics (sequencing cirucular DNA < approx 100kb) is usually performed using DNA exonucleases to remove linear DNA followed by a rolling circle (typically phi29) amplification. The aim of this study is to systematically assess the size dependent bias introduced by phi29 amplification and show that omiting this step greatly increases our ability to sequence and assembly large circular DNA elements such as plasmids