Identification of Epitope-Specific T Cells in T-Cell Receptor Repertoires

Abstract

Recognition of cancer epitopes by T cells is fundamental for the activation of targeted antitumor responses. As such, the identification and study of epitope-specific T cells has been instrumental in our understanding of cancer immunology and the development of personalized immunotherapies. To facilitate the study of T-cell epitope specificity, we developed a prediction tool, TCRex, that can identify epitope-specific T-cell receptors (TCRs) directly from TCR repertoire data and perform epitope-specificity enrichment analyses. This chapter details the use of the TCRex web tool.

Keywords: Epitope-specific T cells; Immunoinformatics; Machine learning; TCR repertoire analysis; TCR repertoire sequencing.