A new tool for prioritization of sequence variants from whole exome sequencing data

Brigitte Glanzmann, Hendri Herbst, Craig J. Kinnear, Marlo Möller, Junaid Gamieldien, Soraya Bardien

Whole exome sequencing (WES) has provided a means for researchers to gain access to a highly enriched subset of the human genome in which to search for variants that are likely to be pathogenic and possibly provide important insights into disease mechanisms. In developing countries, bioinformatics capacity and expertise is severely limited and wet bench scientists are required to take on the challenging task of understanding and implementing the barrage of bioinformatics tools that are available to them. We designed a novel method for the filtration of WES data called TAPER™ (Tool for Automated selection and Prioritization for Efficient Retrieval of sequence variants). TAPER™ implements a set of logical steps by which to prioritize candidate variants that could be associated with disease and this is aimed for implementation in biomedical laboratories with limited bioinformatics capacity. TAPER™ is free, can be setup on a Windows operating system (from Windows 7 and above) and does not require any programming knowledge. In summary, we have developed a freely available tool that simplifies variant prioritization from WES data in order to facilitate discovery of disease-causing genes.