鉴定和增强针对 KRAS 癌症新抗原的 T 细胞受体的亲和力。
Identification and affinity enhancement of T-cell receptor targeting a KRAS cancer neoantigen.
机构信息
Frontiers Science Center for Synthetic Biology (Ministry of Education), Tianjin Key Laboratory of Function and Application of Biological Macromolecular Structures, School of Life Sciences, Tianjin University, 92 Weijin Road, Nankai District, Tianjin, 300072, China.
CAS Key Laboratory of Pathogenic Microbiology and Immunology, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing, 100101, China.
出版信息
Commun Biol. 2024 Apr 29;7(1):512. doi: 10.1038/s42003-024-06209-2.
Neoantigens derived from somatic mutations in Kirsten Rat Sarcoma Viral Oncogene Homolog (KRAS), the most frequently mutated oncogene, represent promising targets for cancer immunotherapy. Recent research highlights the potential role of human leukocyte antigen (HLA) allele A11:01 in presenting these altered KRAS variants to the immune system. In this study, we successfully generate and identify murine T-cell receptors (TCRs) that specifically recognize KRAS from three predicted high affinity peptides. By determining the structure of the tumor-specific 4TCR2 bound to KRAS-HLA-A11:01, we conduct structure-based design to create and evaluate TCR variants with markedly enhanced affinity, up to 15.8-fold. This high-affinity TCR mutant, which involved only two amino acid substitutions, display minimal conformational alterations while maintaining a high degree of specificity for the KRAS peptide. Our research unveils the molecular mechanisms governing TCR recognition towards KRAS neoantigen and yields a range of affinity-enhanced TCR mutants with significant potential for immunotherapy strategies targeting tumors harboring the KRAS mutation.
源自 Kirsten Rat Sarcoma Viral Oncogene Homolog(KRAS)体细胞突变的新抗原是最常发生突变的致癌基因,代表了癌症免疫治疗的有前途的靶点。最近的研究强调了人类白细胞抗原(HLA)等位基因 A11:01 在向免疫系统呈现这些改变的 KRAS 变体中的潜在作用。在这项研究中,我们成功地生成并鉴定了能够特异性识别三种预测高亲和力肽的 KRAS 的鼠 T 细胞受体(TCR)。通过确定与 KRAS-HLA-A11:01 结合的肿瘤特异性 4TCR2 的结构,我们进行了基于结构的设计,以创建和评估亲和力显著增强的 TCR 变体,最高可达 15.8 倍。这个高亲和力的 TCR 突变体只涉及两个氨基酸取代,在保持对 KRAS 肽高度特异性的同时,仅显示出最小的构象变化。我们的研究揭示了 TCR 识别 KRAS 新抗原的分子机制,并产生了一系列亲和力增强的 TCR 突变体,为针对携带 KRAS 突变的肿瘤的免疫治疗策略提供了重要的潜力。