[IGoR: a tool for learning and simulating the random generation of antigen receptors]

Antigen receptors, which form the base of the adaptive immune system, are created stochastically by a DNA editing process called V(D)J recombination. As high-throughput sequencing enables to study the repertoire of these receptors, it is now possible to learn the probabilistic laws of this random process, and to use them to analyse receptors of interest, generate synthetic repertoires to create controls, or aid the identification of receptors that are specific to diseases, with possible applications for medical diagnostics. This article describes how these tasks can be performed using the IGoR software, which can learn statistical models from data, annotate existing sequences, or generate new synthetic ones with the same laws as the recombination process.