IMGT, the International ImMunoGeneTics Information System

Overview

Journal Nucleic Acids Res

Publisher Oxford University Press

Specialty Biochemistry

Date 2008 Nov 4

PMID 18978023

Citations 421

Authors

Marie-Paule Lefranc

Veronique Giudicelli

Chantal Ginestoux

Joumana Jabado-Michaloud

Geraldine Folch

Fatena Bellahcene

Yan Wu

Elodie Gemrot

Xavier Brochet

Jerome Lane

Laetitia Regnier

Francois Ehrenmann

Gerard Lefranc

Patrice Duroux

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

IMGT, the international ImMunoGeneTics information system (http://www.imgt.org), was created in 1989 by Marie-Paule Lefranc, Laboratoire d'ImmunoGénétique Moléculaire LIGM (Université Montpellier 2 and CNRS) at Montpellier, France, in order to standardize and manage the complexity of immunogenetics data. The building of a unique ontology, IMGT-ONTOLOGY, has made IMGT the global reference in immunogenetics and immunoinformatics. IMGT is a high-quality integrated knowledge resource specialized in the immunoglobulins or antibodies, T cell receptors, major histocompatibility complex, of human and other vertebrate species, proteins of the IgSF and MhcSF, and related proteins of the immune systems of any species. IMGT provides a common access to standardized data from genome, proteome, genetics and 3D structures. IMGT consists of five databases (IMGT/LIGM-DB, IMGT/GENE-DB, IMGT/3Dstructure-DB, etc.), fifteen interactive online tools for sequence, genome and 3D structure analysis, and more than 10,000 HTML pages of synthesis and knowledge. IMGT is used in medical research (autoimmune diseases, infectious diseases, AIDS, leukemias, lymphomas and myelomas), veterinary research, biotechnology related to antibody engineering (phage displays, combinatorial libraries, chimeric, humanized and human antibodies), diagnostics (clonalities, detection and follow-up of residual diseases) and therapeutical approaches (graft, immunotherapy, vaccinology). IMGT is freely available at http://www.imgt.org.

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