(1) LIGM, Montpellier, France
(2) ICRF, London, UK
(3) IFG, Koln, Germany
(4) CNUSC,
Montpellier, France
(5) EMBL-EBI, Cambridge, UK
IMGT, the international ImMunoGeneTics database, is an integrated database specializing in Immunoglobulins (Ig), T-cell receptors (TcR) and MHC molecules of all species, initiated and coordinated by Marie-Paule Lefranc, University of Montpellier II, CNRS, Montpellier, France. IMGT includes two databases : LIGM-DB (for Ig and TcR) and MHC/HLA-DB.
IMGT comprises expertly annotated sequences and alignment tables. LIGM-DB contains 17888 Immunoglobulin and T cell Receptor sequences (6 804 fully annotated) from 78 different species. MHC/HLA-DB contains class I and class II Human Leucocyte Antigen alignment tables. An IMGT tool, DNAPLOT, developed for Ig, TcR and MHC sequence analysis, is also available. IMGT main goals are to establish a common data access to all immunogenetics data, including sequences, oligonucleotide primers, gene map and other genetic data of Ig, TcR and MHC molecules, from all species, and to provide a graphical user friendly data access. IMGT will have important implications in medical research (repertoire in autoimmune diseases, AIDS, leukemias, lymphomas), therapeutical approaches (antibody engineering), genome diversity and genome evolution studies. IMGT is funded by the EU BIOMED1 programme, the CNRS, the GREG, the ARC, the ARP, the Region Languedoc-Roussillon, the FRM and the MENESR.
IMGT is freely available on the CNUSC WWW server :
http://imgt.cnusc.fr:8104
(Contact :Denys.Chaume@cnusc.fr)
LIGM-DB annotated sequences are available on the EBI servers :
ftp.ebi.ac.uk/pub/databases/imgt
and http://www.ebi.ac.uk/imgt (contact :
malik@ebi.ac.uk)