New technologies enable analysis of the extraordinarily diverse and polymorphic components of the immune system–especially the human immune system–at a level of unprecedented detail. Reviews and a Commentary specially commissioned by Nature Biotechnology and Nature Immunology discuss these new methodologies, and how they may be applied to track immune status in health and disease, as well as to reveal new basic immunological insight. A Correspondence describing an initiative to design tools and resources to facilitate these high-dimensional analyses is also included.
Editorial
New dimensions in immunology
doi:10.1038/nbt.2795
Nature Biotechnology 32, (2014)
Emerging technologies are broadening our understanding of the human immune system, but capitalizing on their application will likely require philosophical and practical changes to the way research is done.
Correspondence
Computational resources for high-dimensional immune analysis from the Human Immunology Project Consortium
Vladimir Brusic, Raphael Gottardo, Steven H Kleinstein, Mark M Davis & HIPC steering committee
doi:10.1038/nbt.2777
Nature Biotechnology 32, (2014)
Brusic, Gottardo and colleagues explain the goals of the Human Immunology Project Consortium.
Commentary
Quantitative shotgun proteomics: considerations for a high-quality workflow in immunology
Felix Meissner & Matthias Mann
doi:10.1038/ni.2781
Nature Immunology 15, 112 – 117 (2014)
Proteomics based on high-resolution mass spectrometry has become a powerful tool for the analysis of protein abundance, modifications and interactions. Here we describe technical aspects of proteomics workflows, instrumentation as well as computational considerations to obtain high-quality proteomics data.
Reviews
Unifying immunology with informatics and multiscale biology
Brian A Kidd, Lauren A Peters, Eric E Schadt & Joel T Dudley
doi:10.1038/ni.2787
Nature Immunology 15, 118 – 127 (2014)
Dudley and colleagues review some of the computational analysis tools for high-dimensional data and how they can be applied to immunology.
Single-cell technologies for monitoring immune systems
Pratip K Chattopadhyay, Todd M Gierahn, Mario Roederer & J Christopher Love
doi:10.1038/ni.2796
Nature Immunology 15, 128 – 135 (2014)
Love and colleagues review the limitations of bulk measurements for immune monitoring, and explore advances in single-cell technologies that overcome these problems.
The promise and challenge of high-throughput sequencing of the antibody repertoire
George Georgiou, Gregory C Ippolito, John Beausang, Christian E Busse, Hedda Wardemann & Stephen R Quake
doi:10.1038/nbt.2782
Nature Biotechnology 32, (2014)
Georgiou and colleagues discuss rapidly evolving methods for high-throughput sequencing of the antibody repertoire, and how the resulting data may be applied to answer basic and translational research questions.
Beyond model antigens: high-dimensional methods for the analysis of antigen-specific T cells
Evan W Newell & Mark M Davis
doi:10.1038/nbt.2783
Nature Biotechnology 32, (2014)
Davis and Newell explain how cytometry, and single-cell and sequencing methodologies can be used to characterize human T-cell responses in health and disease.