GenomeVISTA—an integrated software package for whole-genome alignment and visualization

With the ubiquitous generation of complete genome assemblies for a variety of species, efficient tools for whole-genome alignment along with user-friendly visualization are critically important. Our VISTA family of tools for comparative genomics, based on algorithms for pairwise and multiple alignments of genomic sequences and whole-genome assemblies, has become one of the standard techniques for comparative analysis. Most of the VISTA programs have been implemented as Web-accessible servers and are extensively used by the biomedical community. In this manuscript, we introduce GenomeVISTA: a novel implementation that incorporates most features of the VISTA family--fast and accurate alignment, visualization capabilities, GUI and analytical tools within a stand-alone software package. GenomeVISTA thus provides flexibility and security for users who need to conduct whole-genome comparisons on their own computers.