I was at NCM Boston & the Bioinformatics workshop, and I saw the Sunburst plot in the wf-metagenomics analysis outputs. I thought that it would be a great visual representation of relatedness between various Covid strains in your multiplexed SARS-CoV-2 sequencing run. What I am visualizing is a sunburst plot generated that represents the abundance of certain clades and specific strains. I think it would make the most sense to have the Nextstrain clades closest to the center of the sunburst and the specific strains radiating outwards from the clades they are related to. I work for a lab which primarily handles SARS-CoV-2, but many others do not have a great grasp on which strains (which sometimes seem unrelated based on name alone) are related to one another. For instance, the emerging (if you'll let me call it that) XEC variant of SARS-CoV-2 is thought to be recombinant of strains KS.1.1 and KP.3.3. From the strain XEC, one would not assume or immediately think that those strains are related to one another, and it would make a nice supplemental figure to include in papers that discuss relatedness for non-SARS-CoV-2 researchers to get a better understanding.
I thought the interactive sunburst plot looked visually better and more concise in an already gigantic SARS-CoV-2 sequencing report.
If these are difficult to implement, at the very least, it would be nice to get a quantification of all the strains and quantification of clades as well in a short output table. It would save us a step and thus would be appreciated.
Additional context
Thank you and please let me know if you have any questions, or think that this would be a good feature to add!
Is your feature related to a problem?
No, not related to a problem!
Describe the solution you'd like
I was at NCM Boston & the Bioinformatics workshop, and I saw the Sunburst plot in the wf-metagenomics analysis outputs. I thought that it would be a great visual representation of relatedness between various Covid strains in your multiplexed SARS-CoV-2 sequencing run. What I am visualizing is a sunburst plot generated that represents the abundance of certain clades and specific strains. I think it would make the most sense to have the Nextstrain clades closest to the center of the sunburst and the specific strains radiating outwards from the clades they are related to. I work for a lab which primarily handles SARS-CoV-2, but many others do not have a great grasp on which strains (which sometimes seem unrelated based on name alone) are related to one another. For instance, the emerging (if you'll let me call it that) XEC variant of SARS-CoV-2 is thought to be recombinant of strains KS.1.1 and KP.3.3. From the strain XEC, one would not assume or immediately think that those strains are related to one another, and it would make a nice supplemental figure to include in papers that discuss relatedness for non-SARS-CoV-2 researchers to get a better understanding.
Describe alternatives you've considered
A phylogenetic tree could also be generated that would accomplish the same goal. I am thinking of Nextstrain's website as a great reference for this: https://nextstrain.org/ncov/gisaid/north-america/6m?f_region=North%20America
I thought the interactive sunburst plot looked visually better and more concise in an already gigantic SARS-CoV-2 sequencing report.
If these are difficult to implement, at the very least, it would be nice to get a quantification of all the strains and quantification of clades as well in a short output table. It would save us a step and thus would be appreciated.
Additional context
Thank you and please let me know if you have any questions, or think that this would be a good feature to add!