Barrat-Charlaix P, Vaughan TG, Neher RA. TreeKnit: Inferring ancestral reassortment graphs of influenza viruses. PLoS Comput Biol. 2022 Aug 19;18(8):e1010394
When two influenza viruses co-infect the same cell, they can exchange genome segments in a process known as reassortment. Reassortment is an important source of genetic diversity and is known to have been involved in the emergence of most pandemic influenza strains. However, because of the difficulty in identifying reassortments events from viral sequence data, little is known about its role in the evolution of the seasonal influenza viruses. Here we introduce TreeKnit, a method that infers ancestral reassortment graphs (ARG) from two segment trees. It is based on topological differences between trees, and proceeds in a greedy fashion by finding regions that are compatible in the two trees. Using simulated genealogies with reassortments, we show that TreeKnit performs well in a wide range of settings and that it is as accurate as a more principled bayesian method, while being orders of magnitude faster. Finally, we show that it is possible to use the inferred ARG to better resolve segment trees and to construct more informative visualizations of reassortments.
See Also:
Latest articles in those days:
- Highly pathogenic avian influenza as a systemic risk - implications for control and preparedness 1 days ago
- Multiple introductions and spread of novel reassortant highly pathogenic avian influenza A (H5N1) clade 2.3.4.4b viruses via wild birds, South Korea, 2024-2025 1 days ago
- [preprint]The mammalian-adaptive PB2-E627K substitution preserves viral fitness of clade 2.3.4.4b H5N1 HPAIV in birds 2 days ago
- Mallard super-shedders of avian influenza exhibit distinct cloacal microbial abundance profiles 2 days ago
- A digitally immune-optimized influenza vaccine broadly neutralizes swine and human H1N1 influenza viruses and protects from heterologous challenge 2 days ago
[Go Top] [Close Window]


