Abstract LB172: Improved T-cell and B-cell receptor repertoire profiling and immunophenotyping for biomarker discovery

Abstract T-cell receptor (TCR) and B-cell receptor (BCR) repertoire profiling, also referred to as adaptive immune receptor repertoire (AIRR) profiling, holds great potential for the understanding of disease mechanisms and for the development of new treatments in infectious disease, autoimmunity, and immuno-oncology. This potential could be greatly improved by combining information about receptor clonotypes with immunophenotypes of T- and B- cells. A new technology we developed that combines profiling of all human TCR and BCR variable regions with phenotypic characterization of immune cells using the same workflow could be particularly useful. The TCR and BCR immunophenotyping method proposed involves RT-PCR amplification and sequencing of the CDR3 regions of the TCR and BCR genes, and subsequently determining the expression levels of the most informative T- and B-cell phenotyping genes. Preliminary results show that this method allows for comprehensive profiling of all seven TCR and BCR chains from a single sample, in a highly reproducible manner, directly from micro-samples including cancer tissue, whole blood, sorted cells and more. Bioinformatic analysis of the next-generation sequencing (NGS) data from the TCR and BCR clonotypes profile combined with RNA expression profiling of the same samples results in a richer data set that includes the identification of major immune cell subtypes and their activation status. Data from human cancer tissue and whole blood samples will be presented. Citation Format: Alex Chenchik, Mikhail Makhanov, Tianbing Liu, Dongfang Hu, Paul Diehl, Lester Kobzik. Improved T-cell and B-cell receptor repertoire profiling and immunophenotyping for biomarker discovery [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2023; Part 2 (Clinical Trials and Late-Breaking Research); 2023 Apr 14-19; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2023;83(8_Suppl):Abstract nr LB172.