Immunosequencing: applications of immune repertoire deep sequencing

Advances in high-throughput sequencing have enabled the development of a powerful new technology for probing the adaptive immune system. Millions of B or T cell receptor sequences can be read in parallel from a single sample. The dynamics of an adaptive immune response, which is based on clonal expansion and contraction, can be monitored in real time at high sensitivity and the global properties of the adaptive immune repertoires can be studied. A large set of clinical applications for this technology are presently under study, with a few diagnostic applications for hematological malignancies already available. A review of this new field termed immunosequencing is presented.