Immunogenomics of colorectal adenocarcinoma: Survival distinctions represented by immune receptor, CDR3 chemical features and high expression of BTN gene family members

Abstract

Immunogenomics studies of colon cancer have lagged behind other cancer types, such as melanoma and lung cancer, potentially limiting immunotherapy approaches to colon cancer, also less common than in the cases of melanoma and lung cancer. Here we applied an extensively benchmarked algorithm for retrieving immune receptor recombination sequencing reads from colon cancer exomes available via the cancer genome atlas. Assessment of the complementarity determining region-3 chemical features represented by the reads revealed associations of distinct chemical features with better or worse survival rates, for both T-cell and B-cell receptor, recombination reads. A follow up assessment of immune gene expression correlations with the recovery of the recombination reads revealed a consistent association of high level expression of BTN gene family members and better survival rates. Overall, these approaches provide several striking consistencies connecting immunogenomics features with colon cancer survival rates, potentially providing a basis for guiding immuno-therapy applications.