How important is it to remove spacers prior to DADA2 filtering trimming, etc?

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Hello! I am currently working on filtering, trimming, denoising of my demultiplexed and paired-end reads (16S V4). I have removed the primers and adapters, but I was wondering how crucial it would be to also remove spacers as these spacers are unique to each of my barcoded samples. This is my first time conducting a bioinformatic analysis, so I'm trying to go about this the best way possible. Thanks!

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Hello @Mahima_y,

I'm only familiar with the term spacer as referring to non-coding DNA, but it sounds like you're referring to some sort of sequence added by library preparation? If it's a such synthetic sequence, then yes it should be removed.

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Hi! It's a synthetic spacer I believe! I ended up removing it thank you.

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