Recent advances in immunoinformatics: application of in silico tools to drug development

Immunoinformatics is an emerging specialization of bioinformatics that focuses upon the structure, function and interactions of the molecules involved in immunity. Two major cell types, T-cells and B-cells, play significant roles in allergy, inflammation, infection and protective immunity. This review examines recently developed in silico tools and databases that can be used to identify, characterize or predict antigen epitopes recognized by T- and B-cells including the latest generation of B-cell epitope prediction tools that employ peptide-binding information derived from peptide phage display experiments. The application of these tools to facilitate drug development efforts is also discussed.