Alignment-free distance measure based on return time distribution for sequence analysis: Applications to clustering, molecular phylogeny and subtyping

► Novel alignment-free method is proposed and applied for molecular phylogeny. ► Method also finds its application in viral sero-/geno-typing. ► Method is robust, scalable and faster for the genomic sequence analysis. ► Enables compact representation of genomic sequences. ► Provides a new way for pattern recognition and data mining.