From immunoinformatics to immunomics.

Abstract

The immune system comprises a complex network of organs, specialized tissues, cells, and molecules. Its main function is to protect the organism from external and internal challenges and provides the interface between the organism and its environment. Foreign agents such as viruses, bacteria, fungi, or parasites may cause infection and disease. Foreign chemicals can cause toxic effects and pathogenic mutations. A malfunction of the immune system may lead to cancers, autoimmunity, or susceptibility to infections. The function of immune system is a complicated balancing act based on the ability to respond to previously seen as well as to unknown foreign agents. The study of the immune system is of critical importance for basic and applied life sciences, particularly for health care. Immunological data are growing at an exponential rate. The main sources of immunological data are public databases, various “omics” data, and published articles. The majority of entries in public database have relevance to the immune system processes. Foreign antigens represent potential targets of the immune response and can be classified into pathogenic antigens and tolerable environmental antigens. Some environmental antigens, such as allergens, carry potential for causing undesirable immune responses. Specialist immunological databases contain wellannotated data of immunological interest with detailed annotation. Genomics and proteomics have provided enormous stimuli to biological sciences. They have provided huge amounts of new biological data and induced a major paradigm shift in modern life sciences. The classic hypothesis-driven research has been complemented with various omics approaches which focus on large-scale study of biological molecules in aggregate. The great scientific conquest of the 20th