Laboratory and Clinical studies on T-cells recognizing NSCLC

Division Of Basic Sciences - Nci

Investigators

Linked publications, trials & patents

Abstract

We have begun a clinical protocol to determine if resident lymphocytes in non-small cell lung cancer are reactive with tumor specific mutated "neo-antigens" and if so, whether they can be therapeutic if given patients using methods recently developed in the Surgery Branch (Tran et al, Science 2014). We are studying ways to sequence the genome of a patient's lung cancer, identify all mutated proteins, redisplay them effectively to the T-cells in their tumors and search for T-cells that can react to these mutated neo-antigens. In addition, we have developed a phenotypic signature in fresh tumor infiltrating lymphocytes that highly enriches for mutation reactivity to the point that new, previously unknown antigen reactivities can be discovered. This has identified CD39 and the expression of CXCL13 as driver markers for neoantigen reactive T-cells. This study also is attempting to find T-cell receptors that could be used to target commonly shared antigens in other patients (see Project #3).