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Peng K, Nowicki TS, Campbell K, Vahed M, Peng D, Meng Y, Nagareddy A, Huang YN, Karlsberg A, Miller Z, Brito J, Nadel B, Pak VM, Abedalthagafi MS, Burkhardt AM, Alachkar H, Ribas A, Mangul S. Rigorous benchmarking of T-cell receptor repertoire profiling methods for cancer RNA sequencing. Brief Bioinform 2023; 24:bbad220. [PMID: 37291798 PMCID: PMC10359085 DOI: 10.1093/bib/bbad220] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/30/2022] [Revised: 05/02/2023] [Accepted: 05/24/2023] [Indexed: 06/10/2023] Open
Abstract
The ability to identify and track T-cell receptor (TCR) sequences from patient samples is becoming central to the field of cancer research and immunotherapy. Tracking genetically engineered T cells expressing TCRs that target specific tumor antigens is important to determine the persistence of these cells and quantify tumor responses. The available high-throughput method to profile TCR repertoires is generally referred to as TCR sequencing (TCR-Seq). However, the available TCR-Seq data are limited compared with RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq). In this paper, we have benchmarked the ability of RNA-Seq-based methods to profile TCR repertoires by examining 19 bulk RNA-Seq samples across 4 cancer cohorts including both T-cell-rich and T-cell-poor tissue types. We have performed a comprehensive evaluation of the existing RNA-Seq-based repertoire profiling methods using targeted TCR-Seq as the gold standard. We also highlighted scenarios under which the RNA-Seq approach is suitable and can provide comparable accuracy to the TCR-Seq approach. Our results show that RNA-Seq-based methods are able to effectively capture the clonotypes and estimate the diversity of TCR repertoires, as well as provide relative frequencies of clonotypes in T-cell-rich tissues and low-diversity repertoires. However, RNA-Seq-based TCR profiling methods have limited power in T-cell-poor tissues, especially in highly diverse repertoires of T-cell-poor tissues. The results of our benchmarking provide an additional appealing argument to incorporate RNA-Seq into the immune repertoire screening of cancer patients as it offers broader knowledge into the transcriptomic changes that exceed the limited information provided by TCR-Seq.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kerui Peng
- Department of Clinical Pharmacy, USC Alfred E. Mann School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Theodore S Nowicki
- Department of Pediatrics, Division of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
- Department of Microbiology, Immunology, & Molecular Genetics, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Katie Campbell
- Department of Medicine, Division of Hematology-Oncology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Mohammad Vahed
- Department of Clinical Pharmacy, USC Alfred E. Mann School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Dandan Peng
- Department of Quantitative and Computational Biology, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Yiting Meng
- Department of Clinical Pharmacy, USC Alfred E. Mann School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Anish Nagareddy
- Viterbi School of Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Yu-Ning Huang
- Department of Clinical Pharmacy, USC Alfred E. Mann School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Aaron Karlsberg
- Department of Clinical Pharmacy, USC Alfred E. Mann School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Zachary Miller
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, USC Alfred E. Mann School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Jaqueline Brito
- Department of Clinical Pharmacy, USC Alfred E. Mann School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Brian Nadel
- Department of Clinical Pharmacy, USC Alfred E. Mann School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
- Department of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Victoria M Pak
- Emory Nell Hodgson School of Nursing, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA
- Department of Epidemiology, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA
| | - Malak S Abedalthagafi
- Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, Emory University Hospital, Atlanta, GA, USA
- King Salman Center for Disability Research, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
| | - Amanda M Burkhardt
- Department of Clinical Pharmacy, USC Alfred E. Mann School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Houda Alachkar
- Department of Clinical Pharmacy, USC Alfred E. Mann School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Antoni Ribas
- Departments of Medicine (Hematology-Oncology), Surgery (Surgical Oncology) and Molecular & Medical Pharmacology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Serghei Mangul
- Department of Clinical Pharmacy, USC Alfred E. Mann School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
- Department of Quantitative and Computational Biology, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
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