T-cell receptor and B-cell receptor repertoire profiling in adaptive immunity

B-cell receptors and T-cell receptors are the key molecules responsible for specific antigen recognition in adaptive immunity. The huge diversity of immune receptor repertoires constrained their comprehensive studies in the past. More recently, however, high-throughput sequencing based techniques have revolutionized the field of immune receptor repertoire profiling enabling new insights into the development and function of the adaptive immune system. In this review we describe current methods for immune receptor profiling and software tools used for repertoire reconstruction from raw sequencing data. We also provide examples of how immune repertoire profiling can be used to study adaptive immunity in disease and in the course of organ and bone marrow transplantation.