Tools
Wide variety of computational, mathematical and statistical methods are available and reported. The tools are helpful in ranging from text mining, information management, sequence analysis, molecular interactions and up to advanced systems simulation. Attempts are being made for the extraction of interesting and complex patterns from non-structured text documents in the immunological domain. Such as categorization of allergen cross-reactivity information, identification of cancer-associated gene variants and the classification of immune epitopes.
Immunoinformatics is using the basic bioinformatics tools such as ClustalW, BLAST, and TreeView, as well as specialized immunoinformatics tools, such as IMGT/V-QUEST for IG and TR sequence analysis, IMGT/ Collier-de-Perles and IMGT/StructuralQuery for IGvariable domain structure analysis. Methods that rely on sequence comparison are diverse and have been applied to analyze HLA sequence conservation, help verify the origins of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) sequences, and construct homology models for the analysis of hepatitis B virus polymerase resistance to lamivudine and emtricitabine.
There are also some computational models which focus on protein–protein interactions and networks. There are also tools which are used for T and B cell epitope mapping, proteasomal cleavage site prediction, and TAP– peptide prediction. The experimental data is very much important to design and justify the models to predict various molecular targets. Computational immunology tools is the game between experimental data and mathematically designed computational tools.
Read more about this topic: Computational Immunology
Famous quotes containing the word tools:
“But lo! men have become the tools of their tools.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“At the utmost, the active-minded young man should ask of his teacher only mastery of his tools. The young man himself, the subject of education, is a certain form of energy; the object to be gained is economy of his force; the training is partly the clearing away of obstacles, partly the direct application of effort. Once acquired, the tools and models may be thrown away.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“... pure and intelligent women can be deceived and misled by the baser sort, their very innocence and experience making them credulous and the helpless tools of the guilty and bold.”
—Catherine E. Beecher (1800–1878)