NeoTCR: an immunoinformatic database of experimentally-supported functional neoantigen-specific TCR sequences

Abstract

Abstract Neoantigen-based immunotherapy has demonstrated long-lasting antitumor activity. The recognition of neoantigens by T cell receptors (TCRs) is considered a trigger for antitumor responses. Due to the overwhelming number of TCR repertoires in the human genome, pinpointing neoantigen-specific TCRs is a formidable challenge. Recent studies have identified a number of functional neoantigen-specific TCRs, but the corresponding information is scattered across published literature and is difficult to retrieve. To improve access to these data, we developed an immunoinformatic database (NeoTCR) containing a unified description of publicly available neoantigen-specific TCR sequences, as well as relevant information on targeted neoantigens, from experimentally supported studies across 18 cancer subtypes. A user-friendly web interface allows interactive browsing and running of complex database queries. To facilitate rapid identification of neoantigen-specific TCRs from raw sequencing data, NeoTCR offers a one-stop analysis for annotation and visualization of TCR clonotypes, discovery of existing neoantigen-specific TCRs, and exclusion of bystander viral-associated TCRs. NeoTCR represents a unique tool to expedite future studies of neoantigen-specific TCRs and the development of neoantigen-based immunotherapy. NeoTCR is available at http://neotcrdb.bioaimed.com/ and https://github.com/lyotvincent/NeoTCR.