What are the characteristics of a cancer cell that are recognized by the immune system? Knowledge of the potential target structures for the immune cells is a basic prerequisite for the development of personalized cancer immunotherapies. Scientists from the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) and the NCT Heidelberg are publishing a highly sensitive method based on mass spectroscopy to identify such tumor-specific "neoepitopes". The analytical method is designed to detect these low-abundance protein fragments and requires minimal amounts of sample material.
Personalized immunotherapies are considered a promising approach to fighting cancer more effectively. Personalized immunotherapies include therapeutic cancer vaccinations or cellular therapies with T cells whose receptors are tailored to the individual tumor. There is one basic prerequisite for the development of all personalized immunotherapies: the cancer-typically altered protein characteristics by which the patient's immune system recognizes the cancer cells must be known.
Researchers refer to mutated fragments of proteins that are recognized by the immune system as "neoepitopes". In order to detect them, the tumor genome must first be sequenced. Using powerful bioinformatics, the DNA and RNA sequencing data can then be used to detect those mutations that lead to altered proteins and can therefore theoretically be recognized as "foreign" by the patient's immune system.
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