Landscape of Tumor-infiltrating T-Cell Repertoire of Pediatric Brain Tumors

The cellular immune system, mediated by specialized cells called T-cells, is responsible for detecting and combating microorganisms that may cause disease such as bacteria and viruses. T-cell receptors (TCRs) are highly specialized receptors on the outside of cells. Knowledge of TCRs can characterize the T-cell immune status in patients. The ability to assess T-cell-mediated immunity in individual patients during cancer progression might enable the identification of patient-specific biomarkers that predict therapeutic efficacy and response. The extraordinary diversity of TCRs is a major bottleneck to determine the specificity of a given T cell. Understanding the immune environment, including the incidence and classification of T cell receptors of pediatric brain tumors is necessary for the development of immune-based therapies. Immune repertoire deep sequencing at the genomic DNA or cancer DNA level is limited by the availability of tumor tissue for sequencing. Access to sequencing data in the Pediatric Brain Tumor Atlas will allow researchers to complete this research and work towards new targeted therapies across pediatric brain cancer types.