Informatics of Immunity

Immunity: Defense against Disease

A cancer cell under attack by T cells of the immune system

Cancer cell killed

Immunology as a Convergence of Sciences

From Genomics to Immunomics

What does the Future Hold??

Immune system is Complex and Diverse

Different Tissues

Different Cells, Defense Mechanisms

Extensive Receptor Diversity

Role of Informatics

Key Questions in Vaccine Design

• Which immune response should the vaccine elicit?

- T-helper cell mediated immunity - Cytotoxic T cell mediated immunity - Humoral immune responses

Prediction of B-cell Epitopes

• Recognized by antibodies• Linear B- cell Epitopes• Conformational B-cell Epitopes

• Each stage in the antigen processing and presentation pathway occurs non-randomly

• T-cell epitopes are linear and short (8-11 amino acids for class I, slightly more for class II)

• Prediction of T-cell epitopes is easier than conformational B-cell epitopes

Prediction of T-cell Epitopes

Prediction of MHC class I Epitopes

In silico Vaccine Discovery• A wide range of software are available• How do you choose the best? - Prediction accuracy - HLA allele population coverage - Promiscous epitope prediction - T-cell epitope Hotspots - Conserved epitope prediction

Databases

Other Resources