DADA2: High-resolution sample inference from Illumina amplicon data
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Updated: Mar 20, 2026

Microbiota Analysis Using Two-step PCR and Next-generation 16S rRNA Gene Sequencing
Published on: October 15, 2019
Benjamin J Callahan1, Paul J McMurdie2, Michael J Rosen3
1Department of Statistics, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA.
Abstract:
We present the open-source software package DADA2 for modeling and correcting Illumina-sequenced amplicon errors (https://github.com/benjjneb/dada2). DADA2 infers sample sequences exactly and resolves differences of as little as 1 nucleotide. In several mock communities, DADA2 identified more real variants and output fewer spurious sequences than other methods. We applied DADA2 to vaginal samples from a cohort of pregnant women, revealing a diversity of previously undetected Lactobacillus crispatus variants.

