Neoantigen vaccine: An emerging immunotherapy for hepatocellular carcinoma

Figure 1 The human PGM5 gene, as an example. Antigen-presenting cells present neoantigens to T cells through human leukocyte antigen molecules, and the T cell receptor recognizes neoantigens. This recognition activates T cells to eliminate neoantigen-specific tumor cells. The bottom part of the figure shows mutations of the PGM5 gene that produce two neoantigens. APC: Antigen-presenting cell; HLA: Human leukocyte antigen; TCR: T cell receptor.

Figure 2 Comparison of gene mutations between hepatitis B virus-related hepatocellular carcinoma and non-hepatitis B virus-related hepatocellular carcinoma in data from the The Cancer Genome Atlas database (^aP < 0. 05; ^bP < 0.01). The red line represents genes in non-hepatitis B virus (HBV)-related hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cohort, and the blue line represents genes in HBV-related HCC cohort. HBV: Hepatitis B virus.

Figure 3 Whole-exon sequencing and RNA sequencing detect mutations in tumors, and then, different methods can be used to identify hepatocellular carcinoma neoantigens. (1) Human leukocyte antigen affinity prediction; (2) Coimmunoprecipitation followed by mass spectrometry; and (3) Construction of a plasmid library based on neoantigens followed by cytotoxicity tests in vitro. HLA: Human leukocyte antigen; CO-IP: Coimmunoprecipitation.