The Immune Epitope Database: How Data Are Entered and Retrieved

Abstract

Easy access to a vast collection of experimental data on immune epitopes can greatly facilitate the development of therapeutics and vaccines. The Immune Epitope Database and Analysis Resource (IEDB) was developed to provide such a resource as a free service to the biomedical research community. The IEDB contains epitope and assay information related to infectious diseases, autoimmune diseases, allergic diseases, and transplant/alloantigens for humans, nonhuman primates, mice, and any other species studied. It contains T cell, B cell, MHC binding, and MHC ligand elution experiments. Its data are curated primarily from the published literature and also include direct submissions from researchers involved in epitope discovery. This article describes the process of capturing data from these sources and how the information is organized in the IEDB data. Different approaches for querying the data are then presented, using the home page search interface and the various specialized search interfaces. Specific examples covering diverse applications of interest are given to highlight the power and functionality of the IEDB.