What is "immunomics"

Immunomics is the study of immune system regulation and response to pathogens using genome-wide approaches. With the rise of genomic and proteomic technologies, scientists have been able to visualize biological networks and infer interrelationships between genes and/or proteins; recently, these technologies have been used to help better understand how the immune system functions and how it is regulated. Two thirds of the genome is active in one or more immune cell types and less than 1% of genes are uniquely expressed in a given type of cell. Therefore, it is critical that the expression patterns of these immune cell types be deciphered in the context of a network, and not as an individual, so that their roles be correctly characterized and related to one another. Defects of the immune system such as autoimmune diseases, immunodeficiency, and malignancies can benefit from genomic insights on pathological processes. For example, analyzing the systematic variation of gene expression can relate these patterns with specific diseases and gene networks important for immune functions.

Traditionally, scientists studying the immune system have had to search for antigens on an individual basis and identify the protein sequence of these antigens (“ epitopes”) that would stimulate an immune response. This procedure required that antigens be isolated from whole cells, digested into smaller fragments, and tested against T- and B-cells to observe T- and B- cell responses. These classical approaches could only visualize this system as a static condition and required a large amount of time and labor.

Immunomics has made this approach easier by its ability to look at the immune system as a whole and characterize it as a dynamic model. It has revealed that some of the immune system’s most distinguishing features are the continuous motility, turnover, and plasticity of its constituent cells. In addition, current genomic technologies, like microarrays, can capture immune system gene expression over time and can trace interactions of microorganisms with cells of the innate immune system. New, proteomic approaches, including T-cell and B-cells- epitope mapping, can also accelerate the pace at which scientists discover antibody-antigen relationships.