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The B cell lineage tree is a visual representation of the various stages of B cell differentiation and maturation. It shows the progression from hematopoietic stem cells to fully functional antibody-producing cells in the immune system. Accurately classifying these cells requires a reliable metric, similar to an evolutionary tree. Our research introduces a systematic approach for comparing B cell lineage trees that take into account important parameters such as tree topology, branch length, and node abundance. This analytical framework facilitates the exploration of lineage changes over time and allows for the comparison of B cell dynamics within clinical contexts. To the best of our knowledge, we were the first to propose a way of processing heterogeneous data in lineage tree clustering. By addressing the complex challenge of comparing multiple B cell lineage trees, our methodology enhances our comprehension of immune system dynamics in disease contexts.

B cell lineage tree, Immunoinformatics, Generalized branch length distance, Clustering