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and related data published in the immunogenetics fields is growing exponentially.
The number of potential protein forms of the antigen receptors, immunoglobulins
(IG), and T cell receptors (TR) is almost unlimited. The potential repertoire of each
individual is estimated to comprise about 10
12
different IG (or antibodies) and 10
12
different TR, and the limiting factor is only the number of B and T cells that an
organism is genetically programmed to produce. This huge diversity is inherent to
the particularly complex and unique molecular synthesis and genetics of the antigen
receptor chains. This includes biological mechanisms such as DNA molecular rear-
rangements in multiple loci (three for IG and four for TR in humans) located on
different chromosomes (four in humans), nucleotide deletions and insertions at the
rearrangement junctions (or N-diversity), and somatic hypermutations in the IG loci
(Lefranc and Lefranc 2001a; Lefranc and Lefranc 2001b).
IMGT
®
(http://imgt.cines.fr), the international ImMunoGeneTics information
system
®
(Lefranc, Giudicelli, Kaas, Duprat, Jabado-Michaloud, Scaviner, Ginestoux,
Clément, Chaume, and Lefranc 2005a), was created in 1989, by the Laboratoire
d'ImmunoGénétique Moléculaire (LIGM) (Université Montpellier II and CNRS) at
Montpellier, France, in order to standardize and manage the complexity of the im-
munogenetics data. IMGT
®
is the international reference in immunogenetics and
immunoinformatics, and represents a high-quality integrated knowledge resource,
specialized in the IG, TR, major histocompatibility complex (MHC) of human and
other vertebrates, and related proteins of the immune systems (RPI) of any species
which belong to the immunoglobulin superfamily (IgSF) and to the MHC super-
family (MhcSF). As such, IMGT
®
provides a common access to standardized data
from genome, proteome, genetics, and three-dimensional (3D) structures.
1.2 The IMGT
®
Information System
The IMGT
®
information system consists of databases, tools, and Web resources
(Lefranc, Clément, Kaas, Duprat, Chastellan, Coelho, Combres, Ginestoux, Giudi-
celli, Chaume, and Lefranc 2004a; Lefranc, Giudicelli, Ginestoux,
Bosc, Folch,
Guiraudou, Jabado-Michaloud, Magris, Scaviner, Thouvenin, Combres, Girod,
Jeanjean, Protat, Monod, Duprat, Kaas, Pommié, Chaume, and Lefranc 2004b;
Lefranc et al. 2005a). Databases and tools are summarized in Fig. 1.
Databases include several sequence databases (IMGT/LIGM-DB, IMGT/MHC-DB,
IMGT/PRIMER-DB, IMGT/PROTEIN-DB), a genome database (IMGT/ GENE-DB),
and a 3D structure database (IMGT/3Dstructure-DB). Interactive tools are provided
for nucleotide and amino acid sequence analysis (IMGT/V-QUEST,
IMGT/JunctionAnalysis, IMGT/Allele-Align, IMGT/PhyloGene, IMGT/Domain-
Display),
genome analysis (IMGT/LocusView, IMGT/ GeneView, IMGT/Gene-
Search, IMGT/CloneSearch, IMGT/GeneInfo, IMGT/GeneFrequency), and 3D
structure analysis (IMGT/StructuralQuery, IMGT/DomainGapAlign, IMGT/Collier-
de-Perles, IMGT/DomainSuperimpose). Web resources (IMGT Marie-Paule page)
comprise 8000 HTML pages of synthesis [IMGT Repertoire (for IG and TR, MHC,
RPI)], of knowledge [IMGT Scientific chart, IMGT Education] (Aide-mémoire, Tuto-
rials, Questions and answers), IMGT Lexique, The IMGT Medical page, The IMGT
