Lightning Talks 29th Annual Lorne Proteomics Symposium 2024

An investigation into the neoantigenic landscape of microsatellite instable colorectal cancer using immunopeptidomics (#100)

Jiahui Yu 1 , Kirti Pandey 1 , David Williams 2 , John Mariadason 2 , Shanzou Chung 1 , Sri Ramarathinam 1 , Anthony Purcell 1
  1. Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and Infection and Immunity Program, Biomedicine Discovery Institute, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
  2. Olivia Newton-John Cancer Research Institute, Austin Hospital, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Mutations in DNA mismatch repair genes such as MLH1 and MSH2 lead to DNA replication errors that cannot be repaired, resulting in microsatellite instability (MSI). Around 15% of colorectal cancers (CRC) exhibit high-frequency microsatellite instability (MSI-H) with a consequent lack of effective therapies. Tumour-specific antigens, or neoantigens, are ideal targets for T cell mediated immunotherapy. The MSI-H phenotype is associated with high mutational burden and subsequently increased potential sources of neoantigen-derived peptide antigens. We aimed to identify neoantigens isolated from human leucocyte antigens (HLA) of patient-derived MSI-H CRC cells, HCA7 and HCT116, using mass spectrometry. Cell surface HLA class ǀ peptide complexes were isolated from interferon-gamma (IFN- γ) treated and untreated CRC cell lines. The peptide repertoire was interrogated by LC-MS/MS using a Bruker timsTOF PRO 2 mass spectrometer coupled to a nanoElute UHPLC. Using Peaks Online 11, data was searched against human proteome appended with a cell line specific mutation database derived from exome sequencing. We identified 87571 HLA-A*02:01-bound peptides that included 65 neopeptides in untreated cells and a further 8 additional neopeptides found only upon IFN-γ treatment. Among these 73 neopeptides, 4 were shared between the two CRC cell lines. In addition, another 79523 HLA class ǀ peptides were identified across the remaining HLA allotypes expressed by these cells, including 27 neopeptides in untreated cells and 8 found in IFN-γ treated neopeptides. Of note, a high proportion of frameshift mutations were observed compared to missense mutations within the neopeptide sequences. The peptides identified, methodology applied and IFN-γ effect have implications for future development of peptide-based vaccines and adoptive T cell therapies in CRC.