Institute of
bioorganic chemistry

The scientists from the Department of Adaptive Immunity Genomics of the IBCH RAS together with colleagues from the Rogachev NMRC DGOI developed the first fully computational method to correct quantitative bias in the T and B-cell receptor gene repertoires (TCR and BCR) obtained using multiplex PCR. These quantitative biases are associated with heterogeneous primer efficiencies and the exponential nature of PCR. This study identified multiplex PCR-specific anomalies in the frequencies of segments within the nonfunctional TCR and BCR rearrangements. OAR coefficients were proposed to quantify such anomalies, based on which an algorithm for quantitative bias correction was created. The efficiency of the algorithm was confirmed by several independent experiments. The results are published in the eLife.