Neoantigens in tumor immunotherapy
Malignant tumors are known to have complex mutational profiles and harbor concurrent alterations in many somatic genes. The inherent genetic heterogeneity is a critical determinant of cancer cells. The term of neoantigens was introduce to emphasize that these antigens are specific for cancer cells and are absent in normal tissue. Neoantigenes are highly immunogenic and at present are considered to be the target molecules in cancer therapy. Although the neoantigens have been known for a long time, their study and use became possible with the increase in the availability of mass cluster sequencing to detect all mutations in tumors and bioinformatic algorithms predicting what mutated peptides will be highly affine to human leukocyte antigen autologous molecules with subsequent activation of the immune response.