In the modern era, it has become vital to understand the genetic basis of the immune system using collection, integration, and interpretation. This will form a basis for the rational design of new immune interventions.
The adaptive immune system is considered as one of the biggest sources of variations in human genes. Major sites being – millions of single nucleotide polymorphisms, the HLA locus, the chromosomal region to distinguishing self from non-self, the millions of uniquely randomized T- and B-cell receptor genes that encode our immune repertoires, etc.
Immunogenomics is a form of information science with a long history. It has come into existence using already existent sequencing techniques, microarrays, mass spectrometry, NMR, chromatography, PCR, mass cytometry, data repositories, experimental designs, statistical methods, etc.
There are certain knowledge gaps that can be filled using existing knowledge and implementing it in different manners. For example, mapping the interactions between the microbiome and host immunity that determine commensal versus adversarial relationships is a new challenge, and this work has just begun.
The important point for now is that most of the immunogenomics is being used only to investigate cancer. Other diseases also need equal importance. Personalized medications that have already been studied for cancer also need to be studied in relevance to other diseases. When cancer is considered, T cells gain the highest importance. T cells determine not only immunogenicity but have been shown to interact selectively with a major histocompatibility complex. Looking at the diversity and complexity of genetic information within the species it is difficult to predict the response of a therapy on a specific individual. It may lead to cross-reactivity and dormancy of T cells. These aspects also need to be studied in detail.
Additional efforts should be made considering the design of any treatment that leverages natural T-cell reactivity when T-cell promiscuity is an important factor underlying the efficacy of cancer immunotherapy.
Applications of immunogenomics include:
- Epigenetic studies
- Gene expression profiling
- Microbiota surveys
- Pathogen genome sequencing
- Small RNA profiling and discovery
- Transcript isoform profiling and discovery
- Repertoire analysis of T cell receptor and B cell receptors
- Whole genome or exome sequencing of tumours
Other areas where new insights from immunogenomics might have medical relevance is in
- immune regeneration
- immunosenescence
- immune decline
- heterochthonous immunity etc.
Gene expression profiling can be used as the basis of novel immunological tests. Genomics needs to be studied in relation to integrated systems biology. However, it is not possible for a single lab to pursue this alone and it faces the problem of public acceptance as well.
Advancements in genomics, technological development in proteomics, interactomics, screening and immunological methods have lead to better therapeutic avenues. There are more challenges to be overcome and more avenues to be explored. A lot of information is being generated in different parts of the world, but is not efficiently used by the scientific community. If the consistency and standardization methods be improved, data storage and sharing techniques be evolved, quicker resolutions can be thought of in research. Immunogenomics is one combination of data that is known to mankind, used for the discovery of therapy and understanding of diseases. It can be taken forward with time and integrated with other branches of science and technology to offer faster and efficient solutions.