IMGT-ONTOLOGY is the first ontology for immunogenetics and immunoinformatics. 
It provides a semantic specification of the terms to be used in immunogenetics and immunoinformatics and manages the related knowledge, 
thus allowing the standardization for immunogenetics data from genome, proteome, genetics, 
two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) structures. 
IMGT-ONTOLOGY manages the knowledge through diverse facets relying on seven axioms, 
"IDENTIFICATION", "CLASSIFICATION", "DESCRIPTION", "NUMEROTATION", "LOCALIZATION", "ORIENTATION" and "OBTENTION". 
These axioms postulate that any object, any process and any relation can be identified, classified, described, numbered, 
localized and orientated, and the way it is obtained can be characterized. The axioms constitute the Formal IMGT-ONTOLOGY, 
also designated as IMGT-Kaleidoscope. As the same axioms can be used to generate concepts for multi-scale level approaches, 
the Formal IMGT-ONTOLOGY represents a paradigm for system biology ontologies, which need to identify, to classify, to describe, 
to number, to localize and to orientate objects, processes and relations at the molecule, cell, tissue, organ, organism or population levels. 
IMGT®, the international ImMunoGeneTics information system®, has been built on IMGT-ONTOLOGY. 



References:

Giudicelli, V. and Lefranc, M.-P.
Ontology for Immunogenetics: IMGT-ONTOLOGY
Bioinformatics, 15, 1047-1054 (1999). PMID: 10745995 pdf

Duroux, P., Kaas, Q., Brochet, X., Lane, J., Ginestoux, C., Lefranc, M.-P. and Giudicelli, V
IMGT-Kaleidoscope, the Formal IMGT-ONTOLOGY paradigm
Biochimie, 90, 570-583 (2008). Epub 2007 Sep11. PMID: 17949886

Lefranc, M.-P., Giudicelli, V., Regnier, L. and Duroux, P.
IMGT®, a system and an ontology that bridge biological and computational spheres in bioinformatics
Briefings in Bioinformatics, 9(4):263-275 (2008) doi:10.1093/bib/bbn014. PMID: 18424816

Lefranc, M.-P. From IMGT-ONTOLOGY CLASSIFICATION Axiom to IMGT Standardized Gene and Allele Nomenclature: For Immunoglobulins (IG) and T Cell Receptors (TR)
Cold Spring Harb Protoc. 2011 Jun 1;2011(6). pii: pdb.ip84. doi: 10.1101/pdb.ip84. PMID: 21632790

Lefranc, M.-P.
From IMGT-ONTOLOGY DESCRIPTION Axiom to IMGT Standardized Labels: For Immunoglobulin (IG) and T Cell Receptor (TR) Sequences and Structures
Cold Spring Harb Protoc. 2011 Jun 1;2011(6). pii: pdb.ip83. doi: 10.1101/pdb.ip83. PMID: 21632791

Lefranc, M.-P.
From IMGT-ONTOLOGY IDENTIFICATION Axiom to IMGT Standardized Keywords: For Immunoglobulins (IG), T Cell Receptors (TR), and Conventional Genes
Cold Spring Harb Protoc. 2011 Jun 1;2011(6). pii: pdb.ip82. doi: 10.1101/pdb.ip82. PMID: 21632792

Giudicelli V, Lefranc M.-P.
IMGT-ONTOLOGY 2012
Front Genet. 2012;3:79. doi: 10.3389/fgene.2012.00079. Epub 2012 May 23. PMID: 22665257

Giudicelli V. and Lefranc M.-P.
IMGT-ONTOLOGY
In: W. Dubitzky, O.Wolkenhauer, K.-H. Cho, and H. Yokota (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Systems Biology,
New York: Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 2013, p. 964-972.

Lefranc M-P
Immunoglobulins: 25 years of Immunoinformatics and IMGT-ONTOLOGY.
Biomolecules. 2014, 4(4), 1102-1139; doi:10.3390/biom4041102

Giudicelli V, Duroux P, Lavoie A, Aouinti S, Lefranc M-P, Kossida S
From IMGT-ONTOLOGY to IMGT/HighV-QUEST for NGS immunoglobulin (IG) and T cell receptor (TR) repertoires in autoimmune and infectious diseases
Autoimmun Infec Dis. 2015 Aug 10. 1(1): doi: 10.16966/aidoa.103