TY - JOUR TI - T cell receptor convergence is an indicator of antigen-specific T cell response in cancer immunotherapies AU - Pan, Mingyao AU - Li, Bo A2 - Smith, Kellie N A2 - Taniguchi, Tadatsugu VL - 11 PY - 2022 DA - 2022/11/09 SP - e81952 C1 - eLife 2022;11:e81952 DO - 10.7554/eLife.81952 UR - https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.81952 AB - T cells are potent at eliminating pathogens and playing a crucial role in the adaptive immune response. T cell receptor (TCR) convergence describes T cells that share identical TCRs with the same amino acid sequences but have different DNA sequences due to codon degeneracy. We conducted a systematic investigation of TCR convergence using single-cell immune profiling and bulk TCRβ-sequence (TCR-seq) data obtained from both mouse and human samples and uncovered a strong link between antigen-specificity and convergence. This association was stronger than T cell expansion, a putative indicator of antigen-specific T cells. By using flow-sorted tetramer+ single T cell data, we discovered that convergent T cells were enriched for a neoantigen-specific CD8+ effector phenotype in the tumor microenvironment. Moreover, TCR convergence demonstrated better prediction accuracy for immunotherapy response than the existing TCR repertoire indexes. In conclusion, convergent T cells are likely to be antigen-specific and might be a novel prognostic biomarker for anti-cancer immunotherapy. KW - TCR repertoire KW - TCR convergence KW - immunotherapy prognosis JF - eLife SN - 2050-084X PB - eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd ER -