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The Genotype List (GL) String grammar for reporting HLA and Killer-cell Immunoglobulin-like Receptor (KIR) genotypes in a text string was described in 2013. Since this initial description, GL Strings have been used to describe HLA and KIR genotypes for more than 40 million subjects, allowing these data to be recorded, stored and transmitted in an easily parsed, text-based format. After a decade of working with HLA and KIR data in GL String format, with advances in HLA and KIR genotyping technologies that have fostered the generation of full-gene sequence data, the need for an extension of the GL String system has become clear. Here, we introduce the new GL String delimiter ?, which addresses the need to describe ambiguity in assigning a gene sequence to gene paralogs. GL Strings that do not include a ? delimiter continue to be interpreted as originally described. This extension represents version 1.1 of the GL String grammar.

Genotype list (GL) Strings use a set of hierarchical character delimiters to represent allele and genotype ambiguity in HLA and KIR genotypes in a complete and accurate fashion. A RESTful web service called genotype list service was created to allow users to register a GL string and receive a unique identifier for that string in the form of a URI. By exchanging URIs and dereferencing them through the GL service, users can easily transmit HLA genotypes in a variety of useful formats. The GL service was developed to be secure, scalable, and persistent. An instance of the GL service is configured with a nomenclature and can be run in strict or non-strict modes. Strict mode requires alleles used in the GL string to be present in the allele database using the fully qualified nomenclature. Non-strict mode allows any GL string to be registered as long as it is syntactically correct. The GL service source code is free and open source software, distributed under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) version 3 or later.

We present an electronic format for exchanging data for HLA and KIR genotyping with extensions for next-generation sequencing (NGS). This format addresses NGS data exchange by refining the Histoimmunogenetics Markup Language (HML) to conform to the proposed Minimum Information for Reporting Immunogenomic NGS Genotyping (MIRING) reporting guidelines (miring.immunogenomics.org). Our refinements of HML include two major additions. First, NGS is supported by new XML structures to capture additional NGS data and metadata required to produce a genotyping result, including analysis-dependent (dynamic) and method-dependent (static) components. A full genotype, consensus sequence, and the surrounding metadata are included directly, while the raw sequence reads and platform documentation are externally referenced. Second, genotype ambiguity is fully represented by integrating Genotype List Strings, which use a hierarchical set of delimiters to represent allele and genotype ambiguity in a complete and accurate fashion. HML also continues to enable the transmission of legacy methods (e.g. site-specific oligonucleotide, sequence-specific priming, and Sequence Based Typing (SBT)), adding features such as allowing multiple group-specific sequencing primers, and fully leveraging techniques that combine multiple methods to obtain a single result, such as SBT integrated with NGS.