SimFlu: A simulation tool for predicting the variation pattern of influenza A virus

Since the first pandemic outbreak of avian influenza A virus (H5N1 subtype) in 1997, the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) has provided a large number of influenza virus sequences with well-organized annotations. Using the time-series sequences of influenza A viruses, we developed a simulation tool for influenza virus, named SimFlu, to predict possible future variants of influenza viruses. SimFlu can create variants from a seed nucleotide sequence of influenza A virus using the codon variation parameters included in the SimFlu package. The SimFlu library provides pre-calculated codon variation parameters for the H1N1, H3N2, and H5N1 subtypes of influenza A virus isolated from 2000 to 2011, allowing the users to simulate their own nucleotide sequences by selecting their preferred parameter options. SimFlu supports three operating systems - Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. SimFlu is publicly available at http://lcbb.snu.ac.kr/simflu.