ViReMaShiny: an interactive application for analysis of viral recombination data

Area of Science:

• Virology
• Bioinformatics
• Computational Biology

Background:

• Viral recombination is a key driver of virus evolution, generating novel variants and contributing to intrahost diversity.
• Next-generation sequencing (NGS) reveals complex recombination patterns, but lacks standardized visualization methods.
• Existing computational tools for mapping recombination events often require custom coding for downstream analysis.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop an accessible, web-based application for visualizing viral recombination data.
• To provide an interactive platform for exploring and contextualizing recombination events identified in NGS data.
• To facilitate the analysis of viral evolution and adaptation through enhanced data visualization.

Main Methods:

• Development of a web application using the R Shiny framework.
• Integration with computational pipelines like ViReMa (Viral-Recombination-Mapper) for data input.
• Utilizes BED file format for representing viral recombination data.

Main Results:

• ViReMaShiny enables interactive, point-and-click visualization of viral recombination data.
• The application simplifies the exploration of complex recombination events identified through NGS.
• Provides a user-friendly interface for researchers without extensive coding expertise.

Conclusions:

• ViReMaShiny addresses the need for standardized visualization of viral recombination data.
• The tool enhances the ability to study virus evolution and intrahost diversity.
• Promotes wider accessibility to the analysis of viral recombination from NGS datasets.