The QCI Interpret Winter 2023 Release brings new variant assessment tools, functionality improvements, and expanded bibliographic coverage for carrier screening

We are pleased to announce that the Winter 2023 Release of QCI Interpret, QIAGEN’s decision support software platform for the annotation, classification, and reporting of somatic and germline variants, is now available.

Expanding on the software’s current capabilities, the QCI Interpret Winter 2023 Release brings new variant classification and assessment tools, functionality improvements, and even more variant content for prevalent hereditary diseases for faster, more informed variant analysis.

Release highlights

New feature

Triage mode to streamline variant assessment workflows

QCI Interpret now offers a new optional Triage Mode inline assessment tool to accelerate variant review workflows. The Triage Mode can be toggled on and off (Figure 1).


QCI Interpret Release Winter 2023 New Triage Mode
Figure 1. Triage Mode toggle appears as an option in the View Settings tab.

For novel unassessed variants, the Assessment, Actionability (somatic workflow only), and the Reportability values match the Computed Classification. Users can then add assessment notes (Figure 2). This new feature is intended to help high volume laboratories quickly assess and triage variants.


Figure 2. With the new Triage Mode tool, users can easily set/save pathogenicity and reportability, add notes, view notes, and set verification status.
New feature

QCI Interpret bibliography expansion for carrier screening

QCI Interpret’s literature coverage of genes, involved and associated with disease(s), strongly differentiates QCI Interpret from other decision support software by providing a fully certified and manually curated bibliography of approximately 1,000 genes with continuous expansion.

In the QCI Interpret Winter 2023 Release, the bibliography coverage is enhanced and expanded with a focus on genes that are routinely tested and proposed for carrier screening by the latest ACMG practice resource (Genetics in Medicine (2021) 23:1793–1806; https://doi.org/10.1038/s41436-021-01203-z).

Specifically, the bibliography coverage was fully certified and manually curated for Tier 3 genes with continued curation of Tier 4 genes, to provide a comprehensive and complete carrier screening interpretation workflow based on the latest ACMG recommendations summarized below:

      • All pregnant patients and those planning a pregnancy should be offered Tier 3 carrier screening.
      • Tier 4 screening should be considered: (1) When a pregnancy stems from a known or possible consanguineous relationship (second cousins or closer). (2) When a family or personal medical history warrants.
New feature

New ClinVar column on the Variant List’s Variant table

In QCI Interpret, a new ClinVar column displays the assessment (P, LP, VUS, LB, B) and number of ClinVar submitters as pulled from the QIAGEN Knowledge Base. A hyperlink takes the user to the respective ClinVar VCV page (phenotype agnostic) (Figure 3).

Pathogenic (P), Likely Pathogenic (LP), VUS, Likely Benign (LB), and Benign (B) interpretations sent to ClinVar are tallied. The hyperlink takes the user to the NCBI variant specific page for additional detail.


Figure 3. QCI Interpret now offers a ClinVar summary column.

For the complete QCI Interpret Winter 2023 Release Notes, please contact your QIAGEN Digital Insights account representative or email our support team at ts-bioinformatics@qiagen.com.

About QCI Interpret

QCI Interpret is a clinical decision support software platform for the annotation, classification, and reporting of actionable alterations from NGS data for oncology and hereditary disease applications. Using augmented molecular intelligence and expertly curated content from the QIAGEN Knowledge Base, QCI Interpret applies a rules-based approach to automatically compute pathogenicity classifications (Pathogenic to Benign) and actionability classifications (Tier 1 to 4) for each alteration according to professional guidelines from ACMG/AMP and AMP/ASCO/CAP, respectively.

Pathogenicity and actionability classifications in QCI Interpret are accompanied by clear visibility into the criteria and evidence supporting the classifications. This workflow starts with a variant call format (VCF) file, so it is compatible with the output from any NGS platform. The final report includes the alterations, interpretations, and references specified throughout the assessment process, which has customizable automation capabilities allowing for streamlined clinical decision support workflows. 

Learn more about QCI Interpret for Oncology here.
Learn more about QCI Interpret for Hereditary Diseases here.

The Spring 2020 Release of the Human Gene Mutation Database (HGMD) Professional is available, expanding the world’s largest collection of human inherited disease mutations to 282,895 entries–that’s 7,179 more than the previous release.

For over 30 years, HGMD Professional has been used worldwide by researchers, clinicians, diagnostic laboratories and genetic counselors as an essential tool for the annotation of next-generation sequencing (NGS) data in routine clinical and translational research. Founded and maintained by the Institute of Medical Genetics at Cardiff University, HGMD Professional provides users with a unique resource containing expert-curated mutations all backed by peer-reviewed publications where there is evidence of clinical impact.

Whether searching for an overview of known mutations associated with a particular disease, interpreting clinical test results, looking for the likely causal mutation in a list of variants, or seeking to integrate mutation content into your custom NGS pipeline or data repository—HGMD is the defacto-standard repository for heritable mutations that can be adapted to a broad range of applications.

 

Solve more cases faster, with data you can trust

  • 282,895

    detailed mutation reports

  • 31,644

    new mutation entries in 2019 alone

  • 10,500+

    summary reports listing all known
    inherited disease mutations

 

Expert-curated content updated quarterly

HGMD is powered by a team of expert curators at Cardiff University. Data are collected weekly by a combination of manual and computerized search procedures. In excess of 250 journals are scanned for articles describing germline mutations causing human genetic disease. The required data are extracted from the original articles and augmented with the necessary supporting data.

The number of disease-associated germline mutations published per year has more than doubled in the past decade (Figure 1). As rare and novel genetic mutations continue to be uncovered, having access to the latest scientific evidence is critical for timely interpretations of next-generation sequencing (NGS) data.

Figure 1. Mutation entries in HGMD Professional. The number of inherited disease-associated germline mutations published per year has more than doubled since 2010 (within 10 years).

View the complete HGMD Professional statistics here.

 

Discover the value of HGMD Professional

Read more about the importance of having access to the most up-to-date and comprehensive database for human disease mutations in our white paper.

HGMD Professional helps clinical testing labs analyze and annotate next-generation sequencing (NGS) data with current and trusted information. Unlike other mutation databases, HGMD mutations are all backed by peer-reviewed publications where there is evidence of clinical impact.

  • Mutation entries are manually curated and evaluated for consistency and accuracy
  • Mutation reports contain links to the original source for full transparency
  • 14,500+ publications cite HGMD

To get the most out of your HGMD Professional subscription, visit our Resources webpage for case studies, technical notes, and video tutorials. Or hear from Peter Stenson, manager of HGMD, in an on-demand webinar on how HGMD has empowered a generation of geneticists for precision medicine here.

Or hear from Peter Stenson, manager of HGMD, in an on-demand webinar on how HGMD has empowered a generation of geneticists for precision medicine here.

 

ANNOVAR

An updated version of ANNOVAR is also available.

  • ANNOVAR v.20191024 is available for download.
  • Major changes: allow refGeneWithVer as a valid gene annotation when using -downdb argument in annotate_variation.pl; add -intronhgvs argument to print out HGVS notations for intronic variants; add startloss and startgain as functional consequences that affects the first ATG codon; add -nofirstcodondel to table_annovar by default to enable calculation of amino acid changes for certain variants previously annotated as 'wholegene'; minor adjustment on nonframeshift vs startloss vs stopgain for certain variants with multiple valid notations; changed p. notation for block substitution that does not cause protein change; changed table_annovar so that ExAC and gnomAD are treated as float fields in VCF annotation; allow genericdb for region annotation; allow chromosome name to contain . or - for certain species; the -polish argument is ON by default in table_annovar.pl; table_annovar.pl can generate column headers such as Otherinfo, Otherinfo2, Otherinfo3, etc; fixed a bug of cdot notation for block substitutions that cover 5UTR and start codon.

Learn more about how ANNOVAR can be used with HGMD for variant annotation. Watch a recorded webinar featuring ANNOVAR here.

 

Genome Trax™

The Genome Trax™ 2020.1 is now available.  Updated tracks have been released with HGMD 2020.1 content for all HGMD-related tracks.  Additional major updates include TRANSFAC® release 2020.1, and PROTEOME™ release 2020.1.

 

Need ACMG classifications to support your variant interpretation?

For labs looking to generate clinician-grade reports for germline or somatic NGS testing, QIAGEN Clinical Insight (QCI) Interpret reproducibly translates highly complex NGS data into standardized reports using current clinical evidence from the QIAGEN Knowledge Base, which consists of over 40 public and proprietary databases, including HGMD Professional.

Click here for a free demonstration of QCI Interpret.

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