Unique features of the TCR repertoire of reactivated memory T cells in the experimental mouse tumor model

Abstract

T cell engineering with T cell receptors (TCR) specific to tumor antigens has become a breakthrough towards personalized cancer adoptive cell immunotherapy. However, the search for therapeutic TCRs is often challenging, and effective strategies are strongly required for the identification and enrichment of tumor-specific T cells that express TCRs with superior functional characteristics. Using an experimental mouse tumor model, we studied sequential changes in TCR repertoire features of T cells involved in the primary and secondary immune responses to allogeneic tumor antigens. In-depth bioinformatics analysis of TCR repertoires showed differences in reactivated memory T cells compared to primarily activated effectors. After cognate antigen re-encounter, memory cells were enriched with clonotypes that express α-chain TCR with high potential cross-reactivity and enhanced strength of interaction with both MHC and docked peptides. Our findings suggest that functionally true memory T cells could be a better source of therapeutic TCRs for adoptive cell therapy. No marked changes were observed in the physicochemical characteristics of TCRβ in reactivated memory clonotypes, indicative of the dominant role of TCRα in the secondary allogeneic immune response. The results of this study could further contribute to the development of TCR-modified T cell products based on the phenomenon of TCR chain centricity.

Keywords

• T cell receptor
• TCR repertoire
• TCR physicochemical features
• Memory cells
• Antigen-specific clonotypes
• NGS sequencing