NAR Molecular Biology Database Collection entry number 172

http://imgt.cines.fr

Lefranc, M.-P.

Université Montpellier II, CNRS, Montpellier, FRANCE

Contact lefranc@ligm.igh.cnrs.fr

IMGT, the international ImMunoGeneTics information system®, created in 1989 by Marie-Paule Lefranc (Université Montpellier II, CNRS, Montpellier, France), is a high-quality integrated knowledge resource specializing in immunoglobulins (IG), T cell receptors (TR), and major histocompatibility complex (MHC) and related proteins of the immune system (RPI) of human and other vertebrates. IMGT provides a common access to expertly annotated nucleotide and protein sequences, structural data and genetic information for the molecules of the immune system (1-4). IMGT includes: (i) five databases: IMGT/LIGM-DB, a comprehensive database of more than 75,000 IG and TR sequences from human and from 104 other vertebrate species (July 2003), IMGT/MHC-DB hosted at EBI [which comprises IMGT/MHC-HLA (ANRI), IMGT/MHC-NHP (BPRC)], IMGT/PRIMER-DB (LIGM, Montpellier and EUROGENTEC S.A. Belgium), IMGT/GENE-DB, IMGT/3Dstructure-DB,(ii) Web resources: 8,000 HTML pages ('IMGT Marie-Paule page') which comprise locus representations, gene tables, allele alignments, 2D graphical representations (or Colliers de Perles), 3D representations (IMGT Repertoire for IG and TR, MHC, RPI), IMGT Scientific chart rules based on the IMGT-ONTOLOGY concepts (5), educational pages (IMGT Education), numerous hyperlinks to external Web servers (IMGT Bloc-notes), a referential index (IMGT Index), (iii) interactive tools: IMGT/V-QUEST, IMGT/JunctionAnalysis, IMGT/PhyloGene, IMGT/GeneSearch, IMGT/GeneView, IMGT/LocusView, IMGT/StructuralQuery. Since July 1995, IMGT has been available on the Web at http://imgt.cines.fr. IMGT has important implications in medical research (autoimmune diseases, AIDS, leukaemias, lymphomas, myelomas), veterinary research, analysis of the genome diversity and evolution of the adaptive immune system, biotechnology related to antibody engineering and therapeutic approaches (grafts, immunotherapy).

Since January 2000, the IMGT WWW server at Montpellier was accessed by more than 210,000 sites. IMGT has an exceptional response with more than 120,000 requests a month.

IMGT is funded by the European Union's 5th PCRDT programme QLG2-2000-01287, the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), the Ministère de l'Education Nationale and the Ministère de la Recherche.

1. Lefranc M.-P. and Lefranc G., The Immunoglobulin FactsBook (http://imgt.cines.fr/textes/IMGTindex/factsbook.html), Academic Press, Harcourt, 458 pages, 2001, ISBN:012441351X
2. Lefranc M.-P. and Lefranc G., The T cell receptor FactsBook (http://imgt.cines.fr/textes/IMGTindex/factsbook.html), Academic Press, Harcourt, 398 pages, 2001, ISBN: 0124413528
3. Ruiz M. and Lefranc M.-P., IMGT gene identification and Colliers de Perles of human immunoglobulins with known 3D structures. Immunogenetics, 2002, 53, 857-883. PMID:11862387
4. Lefranc M.-P. IMGT, the international ImMunoGeneTics database®: a high-quality information system for comparative immunogenetics and immunology. Dev. Comp. Immunol., 2002, 26, 697-705, PMID:12206833
5. Giudicelli, V. and Lefranc, M.-P. Ontology for immunogenetics: the IMGT-ONTOLOGY, Bioinformatics, 1999, 15, 1047-1054, PMID: 10745995

Go to the abstract in the NAR 2005 Database Issue.

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