CARTiBASE: an interactive knowledge base for CAR sequence retrieval and similarity analysis

Abstract

SummaryChimeric Antigen Receptors (CARs) are modular synthetic constructs that have transformed cellular immunotherapy, enabling targeted recognition and killing of malignant cells. Their clinical success has driven an explosive growth in new receptor designs, but these sequences are dispersed across heterogeneous sources such as publications, patents and supplementary files. This fragmentation and inconsistency limits comparative analysis, reproducibility and the reuse of existing constructs. To address this, we curated and standardized more than 10,000 CAR sequences into a single, harmonized resource. CARTiBASE is a web-based platform that provides standardized annotation, interactive browsing and fast similarity search across this curated collection. This unique database was leveraged to analyse the diversity in current CAR constructs within the public domain, revealing common design trends and lineages, as well as highlighting potential avenues for future CAR development. Availability and ImplementationCARTiBASE is freely available for non-commercial use at https://www.cartibase.org, without mandatory registration. The web server is implemented with a Python/Flask API backend and a Vue-based frontend and supports all major browsers. Users can search and filter thousands of CARs, inspect domain boundaries across signal peptide, antigen-binding domain, hinge, transmembrane, co-stimulatory and intracellular signaling regions, compare constructs and download sequences as FASTA files for downstream use.