MpoxRadar: a worldwide MPXV genomic surveillance dashboard

Abstract

The mpox virus (MPXV) is mutating at an exceptional rate for a DNA virus and its global spread is concerning, making genomic surveillance a necessity. With MpoxRadar, we provide an interactive dashboard to track virus variants on mutation level worldwide. MpoxRadar allows users to select among different genomes as reference for comparison. The occurrence of mutation profiles based on the selected reference is indicated on an interactive world map that shows the respective geographic sampling site in customizable time ranges to easily follow the frequency or trend of defined mutations. Furthermore, the user can filter for specific mutations, genes, countries, genome types, and sequencing protocols and download the filtered data directly from MpoxRadar. On the server, we automatically download all MPXV genomes and metadata from the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) on a daily basis, align them to the different reference genomes, generate mutation profiles, which are stored and linked to the available metainformation in a database. This makes MpoxRadar a practical tool for the genomic survaillance of MPXV, supporting users with limited computational resources. MpoxRadar is open-source and freely accessible at https://MpoxRadar.net.