**1.2. The IMGT/HLA database**

The IMGT/HLA database is part of the Immuno Polymorphism Database (IPD) system. Due to the high polymorphism of HLA alleles, allele information is stored in individual sequences, instead of a set of variants. Because of historical reasons (the first public release of IMGT/HLA was in 1998), the database is mainly populated with partial allele sequences. As it is now possible to obtain whole genomic sequences for many HLA loci, whole-gene (or near wholegene) submission is now obligatory for the database and the raw sequencing data needs to be made public and available for independent analysis [3].
