Online Phylogenetics using Parsimony Produces Slightly Better Trees and is Dramatically More Efficient for Large SARS-CoV-2 Phylogenies than de novo and Maximum-Likelihood Approaches.

ABSTRACT: Phylogenetics has been foundational to SARS-CoV-2 research and public health policy, assisting in genomic surveillance, contact tracing, and assessing emergence and spread of new variants. However, phylogenetic analyses of SARS-CoV-2 have often relied on tools designed for de novo phylogenetic inference, in which all data are collected before any analysis is performed and the phylogeny is inferred once from scratch. SARS-CoV-2 datasets do not fit this mould. There are currently over 10 million sequenced SARS-CoV-2 genomes in online databases, with tens of thousands of new genomes added every day. Continuous data collection, combined with the public health relevance of SARS-CoV-2, invites an "online" approach to phylogenetics, in which new samples are added to existing phylogenetic t

SUBMITTER: Thornlow B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9128781 | biostudies-literature | 2022 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature