Bat B-Cell Receptor CDR3 Repertoire Annotations and Comparative Analysis

A 2026 study by QinLu Liu provides chromosome-level annotations of immunoglobulin heavy (IGH) and light (IGK/IGL) chain loci in two bat species, Rhinolophus ferrumequinum and Antrozous pallidus. The research includes high-throughput sequencing of BCR CDR3 repertoires from spleen and intestinal tissues of Hipposideros armiger and Rhinolophus pearsonii/pusillus bats. This foundational work offers comparative data and tools for investigating bat adaptive immunity.

Use Cases

• Comparative evolutionary analysis of immunoglobulin loci based on annotated V, D, J, and C gene counts.
• Analysis of BCR CDR3 repertoire diversity and V/J gene usage patterns based on tissue-specific sequencing data.
• Identification of conserved and species-specific motifs in CDR3 regions based on comparisons with human and mouse repertoires.
• Development of specialized bioinformatics tools for bat immunogenomics based on the annotated IG gene sequences used to build a MixCR tool.

Strengths

• Provides first chromosome-level annotations for IGK and IGL loci in Rhinolophus ferrumequinum and IGH/IGL loci in Antrozous pallidus, with specific gene counts provided.
• Includes comparative analysis of CDR3 repertoire characteristics (e.g., amino acid distribution, N/P nucleotide patterns) against human and mouse data.
• Dataset is openly available under a CC-BY-4.0 license, facilitating reuse and derivative research.

Limitations

• The primary data file is a 4.4 MB PDF; the underlying raw sequencing or annotation data formats and accessibility are not specified.
• Row count and column-level documentation are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for computational analysis.
• Data is derived from specific bat species and tissues; generalizability to other species or immune contexts may be limited.

Provenance

Source

figshare, authored by QinLu Liu.

Collection Method

Chromosome-level annotation and high-throughput sequencing (5'RACE) of BCR CDR3 repertoires from bat tissues.

Time Range

Study published in 2026.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-20.

Geography

Data pertains to bat species including Rhinolophus ferrumequinum, Antrozous pallidus, Hipposideros armiger, and Rhinolophus pearsonii/pusillus.