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Phylostems: A new graphical tool to investigate temporal signal of heterochronous sequences datasets

Doizy A., Prin A., Cornu G., Chiroleu F., Rieux A.. 2023. Bioinformatics Advances, 3 (1) : 5 p..

DOI: 10.1093/bioadv/vbad026

Motivation: Molecular tip-dating of phylogenetic trees is a growing discipline that uses DNA sequences sampled at different points in time to co-estimate the timing of evolutionary events with rates of molecular evolution. Importantly, such inferences should only be performed on datasets displaying sufficient temporal signal, a feature important to test prior to any tip-dating inference. For this purpose, the most popular method considered to-date has been the 'root-to-tip regression' which consist in fitting a linear regression of the number of substitutions accumulated from the root to the tips of a phylogenetic tree as a function of sampling times. The main limitation of the regression method, in its current implementation, relies in the fact that the temporal signal can only be tested at the whole-tree scale (i.e. its root). Results: To overcome this limitation we introduce Phylostems, a new graphical user-friendly tool developed to investigate temporal signal within every clade of a phylogenetic tree. We provide a 'how to' guide by running Phylostems on an empirical dataset and supply guidance for results interpretation.

Mots-clés : phylogénie; évolution; séquence d'adn; méthode statistique; adn; tempête orageuse

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