In our latest immunoinformatics review, OPIG has teamed up with experienced antibody consultant Dr. Anthony Rees to outline the evidence for BCR/antibody repertoire convergence on common epitopes post-pathogen exposure, and all the ways we can go about detecting it from repertoire gene sequencing data. We highlight the new advances in the repertoire functional analysis field, including the role for OPIG’s latest tools for structure-aware antibody analytics: Structural Annotation of AntiBody repertoires+ (SAAB+), Paratyping, Ab-Ligity, Repertoire Structural Profiling & Structural Profiling of Antibodies to Cluster by Epitope (‘SPACE’).

We’ve also given a special focus to the factors that determine whether two datasets in sequencing databases such as the Observed Antibody Space or iReceptor databases can be robustly compared. As it becomes ever-easier to make comparisons between studies, we should all be considering the experimental (e.g. B-cell sourcing, sorting, and sequencing) and computational post-processing (e.g. UMI deduplication) influences on the functional signal contained within a dataset.

The review is now out (open-access) in MAbs: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19420862.2021.1996732.