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Tools to define the melanoma‐associated immunopeptidome
Author(s) -
Bräunlein Eva,
Krackhardt Angela M.
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
immunology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.297
H-Index - 133
eISSN - 1365-2567
pISSN - 0019-2805
DOI - 10.1111/imm.12803
Subject(s) - melanoma , antigen , immunology , repertoire , immune system , mhc class i , medicine , major histocompatibility complex , cancer research , biology , computational biology , physics , acoustics
Summary Immunotherapies have been traditionally applied in malignant melanoma, which represent one of the most immunogenic tumours. Recently, immune checkpoint modulation has shown high therapeutic efficacy and may provide long‐term survival in a significant proportion of affected patients. T cells are the major players in tumour rejection and recognize tumour cells predominantly in an MHC ‐dependent way. The immunopeptidome comprises the peptide repertoire presented by MHC class I and II molecules on the surface of the body's cells including tumour cells. To understand characteristics of suitable rejection antigens as well as respective effective T‐cell responses, determination of the immunopeptidome is of utmost importance. Suitable rejection antigens need to be further characterized and validated not only to systematically improve current therapeutic approaches, but also to develop individualized treatment options. In this review, we report on current tools to explore the immunopeptidome in human melanoma and discuss current understanding and future developments to specifically detect and select those antigens that may be most relevant and promising for effective tumour rejection.