Kabat Database and its applications: future directions

The Kabat Database was initially started in 1970 to determine the combining site of antibodies based on the available amino acid sequences. The precis e delineation of complementarity determining regions (CDR) of both light an d heavy chains provides the first example of how property aligned sequences can be used to derive structural and functional information of biological macromolecules, This knowledge has subsequently been applied to the constru ction of artificial antibodies with prescribed specificities, and to many o ther studies. The Kabat database now includes nucleotide sequences, sequenc es of T cell receptors for antigens (TCR), major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I and II molecules, and other proteins of immunological intere st. While new sequences are continually added into this database, we have u ndertaken the task of developing more analytical methods to study the infor mation content of this collection of aligned sequences. New examples of ana lysis will be illustrated on a yearly basis. The Kabat Database and its app lications are freely available at http://immuno.bme.nwu.edu.