Immunome, Inc. announced the publication of a peer-reviewed article in Clinical & Translational Immunology characterizing B cell repertoires in tissue samples from patients with breast cancer. In collaboration with groups at the University of Vermont Larner College of Medicine and the University of Pennsylvania, the preclinical study combined next-generation sequence analysis and phage panning to characterize and enrich clonal lineages of tumor-specific B cells in discrete tissues from cancer patients. The mechanisms underlying successful anti-tumor immune responses are not well understood and remain an area of intense investigation.

In particular, leveraging information from patients whose immune systems can fight cancer is critical for guiding the discovery and development of transformational drugs. The results published by Immunome and its collaborators provide a framework for understanding (1) how features of tumors relate to the potential for B cells to target cancer cells, and (2) how these cancer-specific B cells are disseminated across tumors, sentinel lymph nodes and blood in the same patient. Using transcriptional analysis, next-generation sequencing and phage display, the authors compared features of the tumor microenvironment with the clonality and tumor specificity of the B cells within each compartment.

Several important observations were identified through this analysis: Increased frequencies of tumor-specific B cells were observed in tumors and sentinel lymph nodes compared to blood, but differed between patients. Enrichment of tumor-binding antibodies using phage panning showed enrichment of specific clonal families of B cells. B cells within tumors demonstrated similarities in the composition of their antibody sequences compared to those from lymph nodes and blood.