ClinGen Variant Curation Interface: A Variant Classification Platform for the Application of Evidence Criteria from ACMG/AMP Guidelines

Abstract

BackgroundIdentification of clinically significant genetic alterations involved in human disease has been dramatically accelerated by developments in next-generation sequencing technologies. However, the infrastructure and accessible comprehensive curation tools necessary for analyzing an individual patient genome and interpreting genetic variants to inform healthcare management have been lacking. ResultsHere we present the ClinGen Variant Curation Interface (VCI), a global open-source variant classification platform for supporting the application of evidence criteria and classification of variants based on the ACMG/AMP variant classification guidelines. The VCI is among a suite of tools developed by the NIH-funded Clinical Genome Resource (ClinGen) Consortium, and supports an FDA-recognized human variant curation process. Essential to this is the ability to enable collaboration and peer review across ClinGen Expert Panels supporting users in comprehensively identifying, annotating, and sharing relevant evidence while making variant pathogenicity assertions. To facilitate evidence-based improvements in human variant classification, the VCI is publicly available to the genomics community and is available at https://curation.clinicalgenome.org. Navigation workflows support users providing guidance to comprehensively apply the ACMG/AMP evidence criteria and document provenance for asserting variant classifications. ConclusionThe VCI offers a central platform for clinical variant classification that fills a gap in the learning healthcare system, and facilitates widespread adoption of standards for clinical curation.