Typically, immunomes are studied using immunofluorescence microscopy to determine the presence and activity of immune-related enzymes and pathways.
[6] However, the amount of information it encodes is said to exceed the size of the human genome by several orders of magnitude due to, at least in part, somatic hypermutation and junctional diversity.
[13] Thousands of individuals will need to be studied in order to meet this goal, and they will need to represent different ages, genders, ethnicities, and geographical origins.
This project is primarily intended to function as a primary resource and the researchers actively accept suggestions from the community.
[11][12] In order to gain useful knowledge about the immunome and its characteristics, the cells and components of the immune system must be phenotyped in a quick and pragmatic manner.
There are hundreds of known cell types within the immune system and the possibility of detecting and characterizing them without the use of recent advances in immunophenotyping technology was remote because large amounts of an individual's blood would have been required.
This can be accomplished by being able to interpret results in the context of the slight differences in ortholog structure between the human and non-human primate immunomes.
[20] An effort is being made to assemble immunological information into a singular database called the Immunome Knowledge Base(IKB).
The two scientists behind the effort, Csaba Ortutay & Mauno Vihinen, have integrated data from three separate databases into IKB.
ImmTree contains entries related to the molecular evolution of the immune system, including orthologous genes and phylogenetic trees.
[1] This database serves as a resource for data on antibody and T cell epitopes studied in humans, non-human primates, and other species as it relates to disease, allergies, autoimmunity, and transplantation.