Computational methods and data resources for predicting tumor neoantigens
Xiaofei Zhao, Lei Wei, Xuegong Zhang
Abstract
Neoantigens are tumor-specific antigens presented exclusively by cancer cells. These antigens are recognized as nonself by the host immune system, thereby eliciting an antitumor T-cell response. This response is significantly enhanced through neoantigen-based immunotherapies, such as personalized cancer vaccines. The repertoire of neoantigens is unique to each cancer patient, necessitating neoantigen prediction for designing patient-specific immunotherapies. This review presents the computational methods and data resources used for neoantigen prediction, as well as the prediction-associated challenges. Neoantigen prediction typically uses human leukocyte antigen typing, RNA-seq transcript quantification, somatic variant calling, peptide-major histocompatibility complex (pMHC) presentation prediction, and pMHC recognition prediction as the main computational steps. The immunoinformatics tools used for these steps and for the overall prediction of neoantigens are systematically summarized and detailed in this review.