Structural basis for T cell recognition of cancer neoantigens and implications for predicting neoepitope immunogenicity

Adoptive cell therapy (ACT) with tumor-specific T cells has been shown to mediate durable cancer regression. Tumor-specific T cells are also the basis of other therapies, notably cancer vaccines. The main target of tumor-specific T cells are neoantigens resulting from mutations in self-antigens over the course of malignant transformation. The detection of neoantigens presents a major challenge to T cells because of their high structural similarity to self-antigens, and the need to avoid autoimmunity. How different a neoantigen must be from its wild-type parent for it to induce a T cell response is poorly understood. Here we review recent structural and biophysical studies of T cell receptor (TCR) recognition of shared cancer neoantigens derived from oncogenes, including p53(R175H), KRAS(G12D), KRAS(G12V), HHAT(p8F), and PIK3CA(H1047L). These studies have revealed that, in some cases, the oncogenic mutation improves antigen presentation by strengthening peptide–MHC binding. In other cases, the mutation is detected by direct interactions with TCR, or by energetically driven or other indirect strategies not requiring direct TCR contacts with the mutation. We also review antibodies designed to recognize peptide–MHC on cell surfaces (TCR-mimic antibodies) as an alternative to TCRs for targeting cancer neoantigens. Finally, we review recent computational advances in this area, including efforts to predict neoepitope immunogenicity and how these efforts may be advanced by structural information on peptide–MHC binding and peptide–MHC recognition by TCRs.