Simurg: simulate bacterial pangenomes in R

Abstract

Motivation: The pangenome concept describes genetic variability as the union of genes shared in a set of genomes and constitutes the current paradigm for comparative analysis of bacterial populations. However, there is a lack of tools to simulate pangenome variability and structure using defined evolutionary models. Results: We developed simurg, an R package that allows to simulate bacterial pangenomes using different combinations of evolutionary constraints such as gene gain, gene loss and mutation rates. Our tool allows the straightforward and reproducible simulation of bacterial pangenomes using real sequence data, providing a valuable tool for benchmarking of pangenome software or comparing evolutionary hypotheses.