The intrarenal landscape of T cell receptor repertoire in clear cell renal cell cancer

BACKGROUND: Clear cell renal cell cancer (ccRCC) is accompanied by T-cell infiltration. In this study, we sought to determine the difference in T-cell infiltration and the T-cell receptor (TCR) immune repertoire between ccRCC and peritumour tissue. METHODS: T-cell infiltration was examined using immunohistochemistry (IHC) and haematoxylin and eosin (HE) staining. The chi-squared test and Pearson correlation analysis were applied to evaluate the relationship between clinical traits and CD3, CD4, and CD8 expression. Immune repertoire sequencing (IR-Seq) was used to describe the profile of the TCR repertoire. RESULTS: The adjacent tissue showed increased expression of CD3, CD4 and CD8 compared with ccRCC tissue (P(CD3) = 0.033; P(CD4) = 0.014; P(CD8) = 0.004). Indicated CD3(+) T-cell density in ccRCC tissue was positively correlated with that in peritumour tissue (P = 0.010, r = 0.514), which implied the T cells in peritumour tissue directly infect the number of cells infiltrating in ccRCC tissue. Moreover, there was a positive correlation between Vimentin expression and indicated positive T-cell marker in ccRCC tissue (P(CD3) = 0.035; P(CD4) = 0.020; P(CD8) = 0.027). Advanced stage revealed less CD4(+) T-cell infiltration in ccRCC tissue (P(CD4) = 0.023). The results from IR-Seq revealed an obvious increase in VJ and VDJ segment usage, as well as higher complementarity-determining region 3 (CDR3) amino acid (aa) clonotypes in ccRCC. The matched antigen recognized by the TCR of ccRCC may be potential targets. CONCLUSIONS: The current study collectively demonstrates diminished T-cell infiltration and increased CDR3 aa diversity in ccRCC, which may be associated with immunotherapeutic targets for ccRCC patients. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12967-022-03771-3.