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Updated: Sep 6, 2025

Phage Phenomics: Physiological Approaches to Characterize Novel Viral Proteins
Published on: June 11, 2015
PIMGAVir and Vir-MinION: Two Viral Metagenomic Pipelines for Complete Baseline Analysis of 2nd and 3rd Generation
Emilio Mastriani1, Kathrina Mae Bienes1, Gary Wong2
1Unit of Discovery and Molecular Characterization of Pathogens, Centre for Microbes, Development and Health, Institut Pasteur of Shanghai, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200031, China.
Abstract:
The taxonomic classification of viral sequences is frequently used for the rapid identification of pathogens, which is a key point for when a viral outbreak occurs. Both Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT) MinION and the Illumina (NGS) technology provide efficient methods to detect viral pathogens. Despite the availability of many strategies and software, matching them can be a very tedious and time-consuming task. As a result, we developed PIMGAVir and Vir-MinION, two metagenomics pipelines that automatically provide the user with a complete baseline analysis. The PIMGAVir and Vir-MinION pipelines work on 2nd and 3rd generation data, respectively, and provide the user with a taxonomic classification of the reads through three strategies: assembly-based, read-based, and clustering-based. The pipelines supply the scientist with comprehensive results in graphical and textual format for future analyses. Finally, the pipelines equip the user with a stand-alone platform with dedicated and various viral databases, which is a requirement for working in field conditions without internet connection.

