IMGT-Choreography: Processing of Complex Immunogenetics Knowledge

IMGT, the international ImMunoGeneTics information system® (http://imgt.cines.fr) is a high quality integrated knowledge resource specialized in immunoglobulins (IG), T cell receptors (TR), major histocompatibility complex (MHC) and related proteins of the immune system (RPI) of human and other vertebrates. IMGT provides a common access to standardized data from genome, proteome, genetics and tridimensional structures. The accuracy and the consistency of IMGT data are based on IMGT-ONTOLOGY, a semantic specification of terms used in immunogenetics and immunoinformatics. IMGTONTOLOGY is formalized using XML schemas (IMGT-ML) for interoperability with other information systems. We are developing Web services to automatically query IMGT databases and tools. This is the first step towards IMGT-Choreography which will trigger and coordinate dynamic interactions between IMGT Web services, to process complex significant biological and clinical requests. IMGT-Choreography will further increase the IMGT leadership in immunogenetics medical research (repertoire analysis in autoimmune diseases, AIDS, leukemias,...), biotechnology related to antibody engineering and therapeutical approaches.