VISTA (VIrus Sequence-based Taxonomy Assignment) is a fast and easy to use tool for analysis of pairwise distance distribution and taxonomic classification for viral genomes within virus families. The distances are pre-computed and stored in the database for every pair within the families and with distribution plotted in a form of histogram where each bar corresponds to an interval of distances.
It takes as input a FASTA file of DNA sequences and calculates pairwise distances between input virus sequences and existing genomes within the family. For each input genome, you will be presented with a list of pairwise distances, from the lowest to the highest. VISTA will compare the minimum distance with demarcation thresholds of the relevant virus family to determine the taxonomic assignment of the input virus. VISTA has been successfully applied to many virus families, and it is our intent to use it as a standard tool and expand it to all viral families for which the system is applicable. For those who wish to use VISTA locally, VISTA was wrapped within a Docker container (see Documentation).
The distributions and demarcations in VISTA are dynamic and the database will be updated regularly to reflect the most current taxonomy.