Building Phylogenetic Trees From Genome Sequences With kSNP4

Abstract

Performing phylogenetic analysis with genome sequences maximizes the information used to estimate phylogenies and the resolution of closely related taxa. The use of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) permits estimating trees without genome alignments and permits the use of data sets of hundreds of microbial genomes. kSNP4 is a program that identifies SNPs without using a reference genome, estimates parsimony, maximum likelihood, and neighbor-joining trees, and is able to annotate the discovered SNPs. kSNP4 is a command-line program that does not require any additional programs or dependencies to install or use. kSNP4 does not require any programming experience or bioinformatics experience to install and use. It is suitable for use by students through senior investigators. It includes a detailed user guide that explains all of the many features of kSNP4. In this study, we provide a detailed step-by-step protocol for downloading, installing, and using kSNP4 to build phylogenetic trees from genome sequences.