TCR diversity – a universal cancer immunotherapy biomarker?

Sipuleucel-T was approved as a treatment for men with advanced metastatic, castration-resistant prostate cancer on the basis of improved survival in randomized clinical trials. A major challenge for this therapy, as well as other newer cancer immunotherapy agents, has been to identify markers that can identify patients who benefit from these therapies. In a recent manuscript by Sheikh and colleagues, the investigators evaluated changes in T cell clonality in the peripheral blood and tumors of patients treated with sipuleucel-T using next generation sequencing of T cell receptor Vß CDR3 sequences. Their findings are discussed in the context of this trial and other cancer immunotherapies.