Measurement and Comparison of Immune Diversity by High-throughput Sequencing

Stanford researchers in the Quake Lab have patented methods to apply DNA sequencing to analyze the variable regions of the antibody heavy chain in order to profile immune diversity in zebrafish. Zebrafish has 5 orders of magnitude fewer antibodies than humans, and thus represents an excellent model system for adaptive immunity. The researchers have performed a comprehensive measurement and analysis of the heavy-chain antibody repertoire of zebrafish. This approach provided insight into the breadth of the expressed antibody repertoire and immunological diversity at the level of an individual organism. By identifying which immune receptor sequences or groups of sequences are most characteristic of specific clinical conditions, this technology could potentially provide a diagnostic capability.