Boosting Antitumor Immunity with an Expanded Neoepitope Landscape

Immune-checkpoint blockade therapy has been successfully applied to many cancers, particularly tumors that harbor a high mutational burden and consequently express a high abundance of neoantigens. However, novel approaches are needed to improve the efficacy of immunotherapy for treating tumors that lack a high load of classic genetically derived neoantigens. Recent discoveries of broad classes of nongenet-ically encoded and inducible neoepitopes open up new ave-nues for therapeutic development to enhance sensitivity to immunotherapies. In this review, we discuss recent work on neoantigen discovery, with an emphasis on novel classes of noncanonical neoepitopes.

Automated summary

Immune-checkpoint blockade therapy has shown success in treating cancers with high mutational burden and abundant neoantigens. However, tumors lacking classic genetically derived neoantigens require novel approaches to enhance immunotherapy efficacy. Recent discoveries of non-genetically encoded and inducible neoepitopes offer new avenues for therapeutic development to improve sensitivity to immunotherapies.