About pyani

pyani is a Python package and standalone program for calculation of whole-genome similarity measures. It is designed to be used with draft or complete prokaryote (bacterial and archaeal) genomes, and implements the following methods:

  • ANIb (average nucleotide identity using BLAST+)
  • ANIblastall (average nucleotide identity using legacy BLAST)
  • ANIm (average nucleotide identity using MUMmer)
  • fastANI (average nucleotide identity using fastANI)
  • TETRA (4-mer sequence profiles)

Funding and Support

The development of pyani has been made possible by generous funding from a number of sources, including:

  • The Scottish Government
    • 2011-2016 workpackages
    • 2016-2019 workpackage RD2.1.4

As is the case with much bioinformatics software, ongoing development does not receive continuous direct funding support. If you use pyani, please do cite this tool in your publications and outputs - this helps us justify future funding applications to maintain and improve the software.

You can find more information about how to cite pyani on the Citing pyani page.