InterARTIC: an interactive web application for whole-genome nanopore sequencing analysis of SARS-CoV-2 and other viruses

Ferguson, James M.; Gamaarachchi, Hasindu; Nguyen, Thanh; Gollon, Alyne; Tong, Stephanie; Aquilina-Reid, Chiara; Bowen-James, Rachel; Deveson, Ira W.

Motivation InterARTIC is an interactive web application for the analysis of viral whole-genome sequencing (WGS) data generated on Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT) devices. A graphical interface enables users with no bioinformatics expertise to analyse WGS experiments and reconstruct consensus genome sequences from individual isolates of viruses, such as SARS-CoV-2. InterARTIC is intended to facilitate widespread adoption and standardisation of ONT sequencing for viral surveillance and molecular epidemiology. Worked example We demonstrate the use of InterARTIC for the analysis of ONT viral WGS data from SARS-CoV-2 and Ebola virus, using a laptop computer or the internal computer on an ONT GridION sequencing device. We showcase the intuitive graphical interface, workflow customisation capabilities and job-scheduling system that facilitate execution of small- and large-scale WGS projects on any common virus. Implementation InterARTIC is a free, open-source web application implemented in Python. The application can be downloaded as a set of pre-compiled binaries that are compatible with all common Ubuntu distributions, or built from source. For further details please visit: https://github.com/Psy-Fer/interARTIC/.