BRepertoire: a user-friendly web server for analysing antibody repertoire data

Area of Science:

• Immunology
• Bioinformatics
• Computational Biology

Background:

• High-throughput sequencing enables antibody repertoire analysis, but data exploration remains a challenge.
• Immunologists require computational tools for large-scale evaluation of antibody properties and repertoire features.
• Existing methods may lack user-friendly interfaces for diverse analytical needs in immune repertoire studies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop BRepertoire, a suite of web-based software tools for user-friendly, large-scale statistical analysis of antibody repertoire data.
• To provide immunologists with versatile options for exploring sequence-specific V(D)J gene usage, CDR properties, and clonotype clustering.
• To facilitate the discovery of discriminating repertoire features for specific research investigations.

Main Methods:

• Development of BRepertoire, a web platform utilizing R packages for on-the-fly statistical and comparative analyses.
• Integration with IMGT preprocessed data for V(D)J gene usage, CDR physico-chemical properties, and clonotype clustering.
• Deployment of analyses via a Shiny web application with options for data download and plot generation.

Main Results:

• BRepertoire offers user-friendly, large-scale statistical analyses of antibody repertoire data.
• The tool supports various analytical modes, including V(D)J gene usage, CDR region properties, and clonotype clustering.
• Demonstrated use cases include differential gene usage in vaccination datasets and CDR3H property analysis in different age groups.

Conclusions:

• BRepertoire is a versatile analytical tool that complements experimental immune repertoire studies.
• The web-based software empowers immunologists to explore and discover significant features within their repertoire data.
• Accessible analysis and visualization tools are crucial for advancing immune repertoire research.