Signatures of recent activation identify a circulating T cell compartment containing tumor-specific antigen receptors with high avidity
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ABSTRACT:
ORGANISM(S): Homo sapiens
PROVIDER: GSE205145 | GEO | 2022/06/03
REPOSITORIES: GEO
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Project description:The success of cancer immunotherapy depends in part on the strength of antigen recognition by T cells. We characterized the T cell receptor (TCR) functional (antigen sensitivity) and structural (monomeric pMHC-TCR off-rates) avidities of 371 CD8 T cell clones specific for neoantigens, tumor-associated antigens (TAAs) or viral antigens isolated from tumors or blood of patients and healthy subjects. T cells from tumors exhibit stronger functional and structural avidity than their blood counterparts. Relative to TAA, neoantigen-specific T cells are of higher structural avidity and, consistently, are preferentially detected in tumors. Effective tumor infiltration in mice models is associated with high structural avidity and CXCR3 expression. Based on TCRs biophysicochemical properties, we derived and applied an in silico model predicting TCR structural avidity and validated the enrichment in high avidity T cells in patients’ tumors. These observations indicate a direct relationship between neoantigen recognition, T cell functionality and tumor infiltration. These results delineate a rational approach to identify potent T cells for personalized cancer immunotherapy.
2023-05-18 | GSE232446 | GEO
Project description:The success of cancer immunotherapy depends in part on the strength of antigen recognition by T cells. We characterized the T cell receptor (TCR) functional (antigen sensitivity) and structural (monomeric pMHC-TCR off-rates) avidities of 371 CD8 T cell clones specific for neoantigens, tumor-associated antigens (TAAs) or viral antigens isolated from tumors or blood of patients and healthy subjects. T cells from tumors exhibit stronger functional and structural avidity than their blood counterparts. Relative to TAA, neoantigen-specific T cells are of higher structural avidity and, consistently, are preferentially detected in tumors. Effective tumor infiltration in mice models is associated with high structural avidity and CXCR3 expression. Based on TCRs biophysicochemical properties, we derived and applied an in silico model predicting TCR structural avidity and validated the enrichment in high avidity T cells in patients’ tumors. These observations indicate a direct relationship between neoantigen recognition, T cell functionality and tumor infiltration. These results delineate a rational approach to identify potent T cells for personalized cancer immunotherapy.
2023-05-18 | GSE232444 | GEO
Project description:A major barrier of vaccines as cancer treatment is their failure to activate and maintain a complete cancer-specific CD8+ effector T cell repertoire. Low avidity T cells are more likely to escape clonal deletion in the thymus when compared to higher avidity T cells, and therefore comprise the major population of effector T cells available for activation in cancer patients. However, low avidity T cells fail to traffic into the tumor microenvironment and function in eradicating tumor under optimal vaccination conditions as opposed to higher avidity T cells that escape clonal deletion and do function in tumor killing. We utilized high and low avidity TCR transgenic CD8+ T cells specific for the immunodominant epitope of HER-2/neu (RNEU420-429) to identify signaling pathways responsible for the inferior activity of low avidity T cells. Adoptive transfer of these cells into tumor-bearing vaccinated mice identified members of apoptosis pathways as being upregulated in low avidity T cells. The increased expression of pro-apoptotic proteins by low avidity T cells promoted their own cell death and also that of other tumor-specific CD8+ T cells within their local environment. Importantly, this pro-apoptotic effect was overcome using a strong costimulatory signal that prevents activation-induced cell death and enables low avidity T cells to traffic into the tumor and assist in tumor clearance. These findings identify new therapeutic opportunities for activating the most potent anticancer T cell responses. High and low avidity T cells were isolated from TCR transgenic mice and adoptively transferred into Cy-treated, vaccinated, neu-N mice. Three days after adoptive transfer T cells were isolated from the tumor draining nodes and RNA was extracted for gene expression analysis.
2014-01-14 | E-GEOD-54020 | biostudies-arrayexpress
Project description:Most naturally occurring major histocompatibility class I restricted T cell receptors (TCRs) that target over-expressed tumor-associated self-antigens (TAAs) are of low avidity due to selection and tolerance in the host and are CD8 co-receptor dependent. Adoptive T cell transfer with TCR-engineered T cells thus rely on the function of CD8+ T cells and do not exploit beneficial CD4+ T cell functions. Hence, we developed a novel strategy that combines expression of a TAA-specific low-avidity TCR with the CD8ab co-receptor and explored the properties of purified transgenic CD8+ and CD4+ T cells separately, in vitro and in vivo. We found that CD8ab co-transfer enhanced TCR+ CD8+ T cell function by increasing their serial tumor killing capacity, indicating that limited availability of endogenous CD8 co-receptors impedes full deployment of their functional potential. Engineered CD4+ T cells were efficiently reprogrammed into hybrid multifunctional cytotoxic and helper T cells at the single-cell level: they recognized and killed cells expressing the cognate class I restricted tumor antigen, became serial killers, produced mostly TH1 and preserved some TH2 cytokines, and showed superior anti-tumor function in vivo in a leukemia xenograft model. CD8ab co-transfer restored the TCR-pMHC interaction in CD4+ T cells and enhanced early TCR signaling events. Single-cell RNA-seq profiling suggests that co-transferred CD4+ T cells acquired a cytotoxic gene expression program and at the same time retained CD4 lineage specific features. In conclusion, we present a novel approach that allows us to (1) enhance the function of TCR-transgenic CD8+ T cells and (2) to manufacture class I pMHC targeted hybrid cytotoxic and helper T cells with both CD8+ and CD4+ T cell functions readily available at the single-cell level.
2020-07-13 | GSE132164 | GEO
Project description:The avidity of the T-cell receptor (TCR) for antigenic peptides presented by the MHC (pMHC) on cells is an essential parameter for efficient T cell-mediated immunity. Yet, whether the TCR-ligand avidity can drive the clonal evolution of virus antigen-specific CD8 T cells, and how this process is determined in latent Cytomegalovirus (CMV)- against Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)-mediated infection remains largely unknown. Here, we quantified monomeric TCR-pMHC dissociation rates on CMV- and EBV-specific individual TCR-alpha-beta clonotypes and polyclonal CD8 T cell populations in healthy donors over a follow-up time of 15-18 years. Within CMV/pp65-specific T cell repertoires, a progressive contraction of clonotypes with high TCR-pMHC avidity and low CD8 binding dependency was observed, leading to an overall avidity decline during long-term antigen exposure. We identified a unique transcriptional signature preferentially expressed by high-avidity CMV/pp65-specific T cell clonotypes, including the inhibitory receptor LILRB1. Interestingly, T cell clonotypes of high-avidity showed higher LILRB1 expression than the low-avidity ones and LILRB1 blockade moderately increased T cell proliferation. Similar findings were made for CD8 T cell repertoires specific for the CMV/IE-1 epitope. There was a gradual in vivo loss of high-avidity T cells with time for both CMV specificities, corresponding to virus-specific CD8 T cells expressing enhanced LILRB1 levels. In sharp contrast, the EBV/BMFL1-specific T cell clonal composition and distribution, once established, displayed an exceptional stability, unrelated to TCR-pMHC binding avidity or LILRB1 expression. Together, these findings reveal an overall long-term avidity decline of CMV- but not EBV-specific T cell clonal repertoires, highlighting the differing role played by TCR-ligand avidity over the course of these two latent herpesvirus infections. Our data suggest that the inhibitor receptor LILRB1 potentially restricts the clonal expansion of high-avidity CMV-specific T cell clonotypes during latent infection. We propose that the mechanisms regulating the long-term outcome of CMV- and EBV-specific memory CD8 T cell clonotypes in humans are distinct.
2023-11-15 | GSE246111 | GEO
Project description:Recurrent disease emerges in the majority of patients with ovarian cancer (OVCA). Adoptive T-cell therapies with T-cell receptors (TCRs) targeting tumor-associated antigens (TAAs) are considered promising solutions for less-immunogenic ‘cold’ ovarian tumors. In order to treat a broader patient population, more TCRs targeting peptides derived from different TAAs binding in various HLA class I molecules are essential. By performing a differential gene expression analysis using mRNA-seq datasets, PRAME, CTCFL and CLDN6 were selected as strictly tumor-specific TAAs, with high expression in ovarian cancer and at least 20-fold lower expression in all healthy tissues of risk. In primary OVCA patient samples and cell lines we confirmed expression and identified naturally expressed TAA-derived peptides in the HLA class I ligandome. Subsequently, high-avidity T-cell clones recognizing these peptides were isolated from the allo-HLA T-cell repertoire of healthy individuals. Three PRAME TCRs and one CTCFL TCR of the most promising T-cell clones were sequenced, and transferred to CD8+ T cells. The PRAME TCR-T cells demonstrated potent and specific antitumor reactivity in vitro and in vivo. The CTCFL TCR-T cells efficiently recognized primary patient-derived OVCA cells, and OVCA cell lines treated with demethylating agent 5-aza-2′-deoxycytidine (DAC). The identified PRAME and CTCFL TCRs are promising candidates for the treatment of patients with ovarian cancer, and are an essential addition to the currently used HLA-A*02:01 restricted PRAME TCRs. Our selection of differentially expressed genes, naturally expressed TAA peptides and potent TCRs can improve and broaden the use of T-cell therapies for patients with ovarian cancer or other PRAME or CTCFL expressing cancers.
2023-03-10 | PXD040651 | Pride
Project description:Background Clinical success of T cell receptor (TCR) gene therapy has previously been demonstrated for NY-ESO-1 TCR gene therapy. To increase numbers of cancer patients that can be treated with TCR gene therapy we aimed to identify a novel set of high-affinity cancer specific TCRs targeting different cancer testis (CT) antigens in prevalent HLA class I alleles. Methods In this study, we selected based on publicly available gene expression databases the most promising CT genes to target. From these selected genes we identified by HLA peptidomics the naturally processed and presented HLA class I peptides. With these peptide-HLA tetramers were generated, and by single cell sorting CT specific CD8+ T cells were selected, and expanded from the allo-HLA repertoire of healthy donors. By several functional assays high avidity CT-specific T cell clones with safe recognition pattern were selected. To evaluate the potential for clinical application in TCR gene therapy, TCRs were sequenced and transferred into peripheral blood derived CD8+ T cells. Results In total we identified, 7 novel CT-specific TCRs that effectively target MAGE-A1, MAGE-A3, MAGE-A6 and MAGE-A9 in the context of human leukocyte antigen(HLA) -A1, -A2, -A3, -B7, -B35 and -C7. TCR gene transfer into CD8⁺ T cells resulted in efficient cytokine production and cytotoxicity of variety of different tumor types without detectable cross-reactivity. In addition, major in vivo antitumor effects of MAGE-A1 specific TCR engineered CD8⁺ T cells was observed in an orthotopic xenograft model for established multiple myeloma, in which bone marrow located tumor cells were completely eradicated after T cell injection. Conclusion The identification of 7 novel CT-specific TCRs, reactive against CT antigens presented in a variety of different HLA class I alleles, allows selection of therapeutic TCRs for an increased number of cancer patients, and will improve development of personalized TCR gene therapy.
2023-01-23 | PXD038862 | Pride
Project description:A major barrier of vaccines as cancer treatment is their failure to activate and maintain a complete cancer-specific CD8+ effector T cell repertoire. Low avidity T cells are more likely to escape clonal deletion in the thymus when compared to higher avidity T cells, and therefore comprise the major population of effector T cells available for activation in cancer patients. However, low avidity T cells fail to traffic into the tumor microenvironment and function in eradicating tumor under optimal vaccination conditions as opposed to higher avidity T cells that escape clonal deletion and do function in tumor killing. We utilized high and low avidity TCR transgenic CD8+ T cells specific for the immunodominant epitope of HER-2/neu (RNEU420-429) to identify signaling pathways responsible for the inferior activity of low avidity T cells. Adoptive transfer of these cells into tumor-bearing vaccinated mice identified members of apoptosis pathways as being upregulated in low avidity T cells. The increased expression of pro-apoptotic proteins by low avidity T cells promoted their own cell death and also that of other tumor-specific CD8+ T cells within their local environment. Importantly, this pro-apoptotic effect was overcome using a strong costimulatory signal that prevents activation-induced cell death and enables low avidity T cells to traffic into the tumor and assist in tumor clearance. These findings identify new therapeutic opportunities for activating the most potent anticancer T cell responses.
2014-01-14 | GSE54020 | GEO
Project description:To identify the molecular bases for divergence in differentiation programs of naïve CD8 T cells, we monitored gene expression profile of CD8+ T cells from BM3.3 transgenic mice during responses to TCR ligands of different avidity (full response with antigen presenting cells from C57BL/6 mice , partial response with antigen presenting cells from C57BL/6.C-H-2bm8 mice).
2004-07-07 | E-MEXP-16 | biostudies-arrayexpress
Project description:T lymphocytes leverage T-cell receptor (TCR) recognition of aberrant peptides bound to major histocompatibility complex molecules (pMHCs) on altered cells to protect the mammalian host from infectious pathogens and cancerous transformations. While adaptive immunity requires efficient TCR performance, comparison metrics are widely limited to force-free assays. Recent data reveals, however, that mechanical load on the TCR-pMHC bond resulting from cellular motions between a T cell-antigen presenting cell conjugate formed during immune surveillance tunes TCR specificity and sensitivity. Here, we cloned TCRs from lung resident CD8 T cells following influenza A virus (IAV) infection directed against two immunodominant epitopes, the luminous nucleoprotein NP366-374 /Db and sparse acid polymerase PA224-233/Db pMHCs, arrayed at >1000 vs <10 copies/cell, respectively. Using optical tweezers-based methods to apply biologically relevant loads, we observe that certain TCRs belonging to the NP repertoire require many ligands for activation while others only few, functioning in analogue or digital modes, correspondingly. In contrast, prevalent TCRs tested in the PA repertoire all perform digitally. When held at a critical force, moreover, even digital TCRs are distinguishable, exhibiting dramatic increases in bond lifetime and performance relating to their structural transition rate and distance. Digital performance is best for both specificities in vitro and in vivo, but undiscernible using conventional functional avidity or TCR sequence distance metrics. Correlates of optimal biophysical parameters include magnitudes of ERK phosphorylation, CD3 surface loss, and activation marker upregulation. Our findings underscore the requirement to match TCR performance quality with pMHC copy number, as nature does. Given tumor antigen array paucity, engaging choice digital TCRs appears critical for T-cell adoptive cancer therapies and vaccines.
2024-08-21 | GSE240414 | GEO