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JOURNAL OFCLINICAL BIOINFORMATICSMichaeli et al. Journal of Clinical Bioinformatics 2013, /15METHODOLOGYOpen AccessAutomated analysis of immunoglobulin genesfrom high-throughput sequencing: life without atemplateMiri Michaeli, Michal Barak, Lena Hazanov, Hila Noga and Ramit Mehr*AbstractBackground: Immunoglobulin (that is, antibody) and T cell receptor genes are created through somatic generearrangement from gene segment libraries. Immunoglobulin genes are further diversified by somatichypermutation and selection during the immune response. Studying the repertoires of these genes yields valuableinsights into immune system function in infections, aging, autoimmune diseases and cancers. The introduction ofhigh throughput sequencing has generated unprecedented amounts of repertoire and mutation data fromimmunoglobulin genes. However, common analysis programs are not appropriate for pre-processing and analyzingthese data due to the lack of a template or reference for the whole gene.Results: We present here the automated analysis pipeline we created for this purpose, which integrates varioussoftware packages of our own development and others’, and demonstrate its performance.Conclusions: Our analysis pipeline presented here is highly modular, and makes it possible to analyze the dataresulting from high-throughput sequencing of immunoglobulin genes, in spite of the lack of a template gene. Anexecutable version of the Automation program (and its source code) is freely available for downloading from ourwebsite: ords: Immunoglobulin, B cells, High-throughput sequencing, Insertions-deletions, Repertoire, Lineage tree,Somatic hyper-mutationBackgroundImmunoglobulin (antibody) genes and lymphocyterepertoiresThe immune response involves cells of various types, mostnotably the B and T lymphocytes, which perform the rolesof antibody production (B cells), killing virally-infected ortransformed cells (cytotoxic T cells), or directing the immune response in many ways (helper T cells). These lymphocytes express a large diversity of receptors called Band T cell receptors (BCR and TCR, respectively), whichrecognize foreign antigens as well as self-molecules. Thegenes for BCRs and TCRs are somatically rearranged fromsegments that are randomly selected from gene segmentlibraries, with much imprecision in the joining of genesegments [1-4]. T and B cells are formed throughout life;* Correspondence: Ramit.Mehr@BIU.ac.ilThe Mina & Everard Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences, Bar-Ilan University,Ramat-Gan 52900, Israelthose lymphocytes whose receptors bind their cognateantigen proliferate and perform their effector functions,with some of these cells remaining in the system as longlived memory cells.In addition, B cells mutate their receptor genes (alsocalled immunoglobulin genes) during the immune response, and selection processes acting on the mutantsresult in improved affinity of the BCRs and of their secreted form–i.e., the antibodies–to the antigen. Thus thediverse repertoire of T and B lymphocytes within eachindividual is constantly changing. While TCR and BCRdiversification endows the system with the ability to produce receptors recognizing any possible biological molecule or pathogen, the staggering receptor diversity–upto 1011 different B or T cell clones in each human, for example–makes it very difficult to study how the lymphocyte repertoire changes under various conditions. Suchstudies are very important for, e.g., understanding how theimmune system copes with complex infections such as 2013 Michaeli et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the CreativeCommons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, andreproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Michaeli et al. Journal of Clinical Bioinformatics 2013, /15those with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) orhepatitis B virus, and finding the best neutralizing antibodies [5]; for elucidating the changes in immune functionduring natural aging [6]; or for correctly classifying lymphocyte cancers [4].High-throughput sequencing of immunoglobulingenes–the challengeThe recent development of high throughput sequencing(HTS) enables researchers to obtain large numbers of sequences from several samples simultaneously. HTS has agreat advantage over classical sequencing methods in thefield of immunoglobulin (Ig) gene research, as it enablesus to extract more sequences per sample and is sensitiveenough so we can identify different unique sequences[3,5-8]. HTS has already been available for several years;thus, data cleaning programs have been developed, toperform the identification of molecular identification (MID)tags and primers and discard low-quality sequences(reviewed in [9]). However, the software packages normally used to clean HTS data and identify mutations relyon the existence of a “reference” or “template” for thewhole gene, to which all sequences can be compared.Such a template does not and cannot exist for the highlydiverse repertoire of Ig genes, and thus the available programs cannot deal with the cleaning of Ig genes, for thefollowing reasons.First, the large numbers of sequences that are obtainedfrom HTS must be curated, that is, assigned to samples,cleaned from artifact or low quality sequences, and putin the correct orientation. Doing this manually for hundreds of thousands or millions of sequences is obviouslynot feasible. We have developed a data cleaning program, Ig-HTS-Cleaner, that addresses this need [9]. Thisprogram performs the following tasks. First, it assignsthe sequences to samples according to their MID tags,and discards sequences in which MID tags cannot beidentified at both ends–which is useful in case samplesare coded not by a single MID tag but by a combinationof MID tags at both ends. It also discards sequences inwhich the MID tag combination is identifiable but doesnot appear in the list of sample codes, because these sequences are most probably artifactual chimeric (hybrid)sequences created during PCR amplification or sequencing. Second, Ig-HTS-Cleaner identifies the primers atboth ends of each read, using dynamic programmingwith the user-defined limit to the number of mismatchesallowed, in cases where an exact match cannot be found.Primers need to be identified in order to be removedfrom the read, because mismatches in these segmentsmay be PCR errors and thus should not be counted asbona fide somatic mutations. Third, the program discards all reads that do not conform with the lengthrange of Ig genes (and thus may be irrelevant genes orPage 2 of 6chimeric sequences), and those that have quality scoresbelow the user-defined threshold. All discarded read arecounted and stored in separate files for quality control.This enables the user to study the effects of changingthe program’s parameters (such as the maximum number of allowed mismatches in primer search), and thusoptimize the parameters for the dataset at hand.Second, the large number of processing steps requiredeven after data are curated means that analysis of thedata manually–even with most programs having the ability to run large batch jobs–would take too long andwould be very repetitive and tedious. In the days beforeHTS, it still took us weeks to analyze data from studiesthat generated only hundreds of sequences. Thus, asmany of these steps as possible needed to be automated.For this to work, the different data formats must be reconciled, such that in each step the program used will beable to work on the output from the previous step. Wedescribe our proposed solution in the Methods section.Further processing of immunoglobulin gene dataIn order to analyze the Ig gene repertoire and the mutations that have accumulated in these genes, several preliminary steps must be taken above and beyond data cleaning.The component segments of each gene (germline segments) must be identified, sequences should be groupedinto clonally-related sets, alignments and lineage tree analysis should be performed in order to infer the junction regions between segments, and then one needs to correctlyidentify the mutations and their most likely history in eachclone. The community of researchers focusing on BCRbioinformatics has developed various software packages toperform this task over the years (reviewed in [10]). Themain contribution of our studies to this collection of methods was the introduction of lineage tree analysis. Lineagetree generation is performed using our program IgTree [11], implementing a distance method-based algorithmthat finds the most likely tree with a high probability. Afterthe construction of lineage trees, various mutationalanalyses that rely on tree structure can be performed,such as amino acid (AA) substitution counts [12-14],which may determine the effect that mutations have onthe final antibody, and analysis of the frequencies of replacement and silent mutations (RS analysis) [15,16],which provides insights regarding the nature of selection. Lineage trees also enable the investigation of B cellclonal dynamics, such as initial affinity or selectionthreshold of clones, by measuring their graphical properties, using our program MTree [17].Recently, we have also developed a program, Ig-Indel-Identifier, that deals with the insertions and deletions(indels) near homopolymer tracts–a known problemwith the 454 HTS platform, which is more severe in Iggene analysis due to the lack of template or reference

Michaeli et al. Journal of Clinical Bioinformatics 2013, /15genes. While the two above-mentioned programs arenot guaranteed to identify each and every artifactual insertion, deletion or chimeric sequence, they manage toidentify many of these cases, so that manual examinationof the sequences is only needed in very few cases.The analysis of an Ig sequence dataset is thus composedof between 10 to 20 different steps, each performed by adifferent program. As long as B cell repertoire researchhad been based on Sanger sequencing, yielding at mosthundreds of sequences in each study, each of these analysis steps could be performed separately and semimanually for each clone. With the introduction of HTS,however, the enormous number and diversity of Ig genesequence reads makes it impossible to manually analyzethe sequencing results. To address this challenge, we havedeveloped an almost completely automated analysis pipeline, which integrates the programs used in each step ofthe analysis and enables us to analyze large numbers ofreads. Some of the tools we have developed have the potential to be useful for other situations where a template islacking. In this paper, we present the structure of this automated pipeline, the programs used in each step, andpreliminary results from some of the studies that wereperformed so far using this pipeline.MethodsAutomated analysis pipeline for Ig gene HTS dataanalysisWe created an almost completely automated pipelinethat includes all steps a set of sequences has to pass,starting with the 454 raw data up to the final results ofthe analysis. Figure 1 describes this pipeline, and the sections below describe the steps that it takes to analyze thedata.Part one: from raw data to Ig gene sequences ready to beanalyzedRaw data are cleaned and assigned to samples using IgHTS-Cleaner, as explained above. The next step is tofind the germline segments composing each rearrangedgene. Mutated sequences must be compared to the premutation rearranged sequence to identify mutations. Usually, this sequence is not available, so it is reconstructed byidentifying the original gene segments used, based onhighest homology to the mutated sequence; the germlinejunction region is then deduced from a consensus of allclonally related sequences. Several programs may be usedfor identifying the germline segments and the junction regions, such as IMGT/V-QUEST [18], SoDA [19] oriHMMune-align [20]. We currently use SoDA for our analyses as it is most convenient to use.Next, we discard duplicate sequences, as they may bederived from the PCR reaction so we cannot be surethey represent the actual cell numbers. The routinePage 3 of 6Figure 1 A scheme of the cleaning and analysis pipeline ofhigh throughput Ig gene sequences. The process starts with rawdata reads from high throughput sequencing (right column). Eachrectangle in the right column represents an independent module orprogram that is used in the analysis pipeline, and thus can beskipped through. The Automation program is represented in theright column as a single step, and the lines coming out of the“Automation” rectangles lead to the left column which presents theAutomation program flow, which is constructed of several steps asdetailed in the manuscript. The Automation program receives asinput a file of sequences, and creates metadata and alignment filesfor each clone for further analyses. The arrows in the right columnrepresent the recommended flow of the cleaning and analysisprocess as created and done by the authors. The arrows in the leftcolumn represent the flow of the Automation program, as discussedin the manuscript.“DeleteDuplicates” performs the following steps. Foreach sample, the program creates a file that containsonly unique sequences, i.e. sequences that differ fromeach other by insertions, deletions or substitutions. Foreach unique sequence, the program lists all its duplicatesequences, if any, in a separate file.Finally, each sample is analyzed by our “Automationprogram”, which consists of several steps (see below).Part two: clone assignment and alignment–theAutomation programThe “Automation program” is a UNIX based program,written in C and Java, and designed to process Ig sequences from B cells whether they come from HTS or not.The purpose of the Automation program is to automate

Michaeli et al. Journal of Clinical Bioinformatics 2013, /15the complex processing and analysis of large numbers ofIg gene sequences including grouping them into clones,creating lineage trees using IgTree [11], and analyzing allthe mutations using MTree and the additional programsdescribed below. All these steps have existed in the groupas separate programs prior to the automation. Manualanalysis, as was executed until now, is out of the questiondue to the much larger numbers of sequences obtained byHTS. The Automation program makes this analysis veryfast, easy and accurate. An executable version of theAutomation program (and its source code) is freelyavailable for downloading from http://immsilico2.lnx.biu.ac.il/Software.html. In order to run the Automationprogram, one should have a UNIX-based operatingsystem, and only a basic knowledge in UNIX commandsis required (all requirements and instructions for running the Automation program are delivered with theexecutable files).During an analysis run, the Automation program runsthe sequences in a local version of SoDA to identify theV(D)J segments of each sequence and its germline (GL)sequence. Then, it sorts the sequences into groups(clones) having the same V(D)J segments. All GL sequences in each clone are aligned using a local versionof ClustalW2 [21], under the basic assumption that allthe sequences in a clone have developed from the sameGL ancestor. Therefore, we use the alignment to findthe consensus GL sequence, which is the common ancestor of all sequences within the clone, and is combinedof the identified GL segments and the majority consensus for the junction regions (N-nucleotides). After finding the consensus GL sequence, all the sequences in aclone and the consensus GL sequence are aligned again.(The alignment provides several parameters and a pirfile, which are later used for IgTree and tree drawings).The next step is applying the local version of SoDA tothe GL sequence in order to obtain more parameters regarding the clone, such as regions of CDRs and FRs, anda summary of all clone parameters is written into a filecalled ‘Metadata’.Following the first run of the Automation program, weproceed to clean artifactual insertions/deletions from thesequences using Ig-Indel-identifier, as explained above.We then perform a functionality analysis on the filescontaining sequences without artifact indels, which divides the sequences of each sample into functional, nonfunctional and indeterminate sequences according toSoDA definitions. Non-functional sequences often havea frame-shift or a stop codon in their sequence. Indeterminate sequences usually contain short J segments, suchthat the reading frame cannot be identified by SoDA.Thus, the routine FunctionalOrNot creates three filesusing the Metadata files from the automation process,containing functional, indeterminate and non-functionalPage 4 of 6sequences, respectively. In addition, it lists the numberof functional, indeterminate and non-functional sequences in each clone. The user may proceed with theanalysis using only the functional sequences, only nonfunctional sequences, or all sequences. After these intermediate steps, we run the automation on the cleanedfiles, finally receiving groups of cleaned, clonally-relatedand aligned sequences, ready for lineage tree analysis.Part three: finally, repertoire, lineage tree and mutationanalysesDuring the clonal expansion of B cells in response to antigen, Ig gene sequences accumulate mutations via somatichypermutation and thus diversify. An easy way to trackand analyze the relationships between clonally related Iggene sequences is by using lineage trees. The tree root isthe ancestor sequence, usually the rearranged, pre-mutationsequence. Each tree node represents a single mutation(point mutation, insertion or deletion).IgTree and MTree are run on the aligned clonallyrelated groups of sequences. IgTree produces the treefiles as adjacency lists, which serve as the input forMTree; tree drawing files from which one may createthe actual drawings using a graphics programs, e.g.Graphviz; and input for the various mutation analysisprograms. Our routine “UseGraphviz” runs Graphviz, aprogram for lineage tree drawings, on all tree filesautomatically.We then perform repertoire analysis (that is, enumerate the clones and sequences that are based on eachcombination of the V,D and J germline segments) andclonal size distribution analysis, and analyses of mutation targeting motifs, AA substitution, RS and lineagetree measurements. HTS provides us with many moresequences than previously, allowing deeper observationsinto the BCR repertoire in various clinical conditions.Many researchers, who have performed HTS on Ig genesequences so far, focused mainly on repertoire analysis(e.g., [6,22]). Therefore, we can compare our repertoireanalysis results to those of previous studies, even thoughthe first Ig gene HTS studies were published only aboutfour years ago [7]. In order to analyze repertoires, wecreated a table of all possible V and J combinations. Foreach sample, we enumerate the clones and uniquesequences that use each V-J combination. After thetables are created by the RepertoireAnalysisMaker scriptwe calculate the average percent of the frequency ofclones and unique sequences of each V-J combination,across all individuals within the same group. Thisnormalizes the cases where some samples contain moresequences and/or clones than others due to PCR bias.Clonal size distribution analysis examines the distribution of the numbers of sequences in all clones in a sample. To create clonal size distributions for all samples,

Michaeli et al. Journal of Clinical Bioinformatics 2013, /15we wrote a script (ClonalDistribution) that createsa tab-delimited .txt file, containing the n

Automated analysis pipeline for Ig gene HTS data analysis We created an almost completely automated pipeline that includes all steps a set of sequences has to pass, starting with the 454 raw data up to the final results of the analysis. Figure 1 describes this pipeline, and the sec-tions below desc

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