The immune system is a complex network of cells and molecules that defend the body against foreign invaders. Central to this defense mechanism are the T and B cells, which play a critical role in adaptive immunity.
The adaptive immune system’s ability to recognize and neutralize a vast array of pathogens relies on the diversity of its lymphocyte repertoire. T and B lymphocytes, with their unique T cell receptors (TCRs) and B cell receptors (BCRs), are crucial for immunological memory and effective immune responses. This diversity allows the immune system to identify and combat a broad range of pathogens. Studying immune repertoire diversity offers valuable insights into disease mechanisms, therapeutic strategies, and vaccine development.
The field of immune repertoire profiling has witnessed remarkable advancements in recent years, revolutionizing our understanding of the immune system and its role in various diseases. One of the key techniques to understand this complex mechanism is TCR sequencing. TCR, or T-cell receptor, plays a crucial role in the adaptive immune response by recognizing and binding to specific antigens. By sequencing the TCR repertoire, researchers can gain valuable insights into the diversity and specificity of T-cell populations, leading to the development of novel treatment modalities in infectious diseases, autoimmunity, and immuno-oncology.
Recent advances in next-generation sequencing technologies have heralded a paradigm shift in the field of precision oncology and personalized/genomic medicine, with a large number of somatic- and germline mutation-profiling programs worldwide. These programs have paved the way for personalized medicine in contrast to a unified approach that clearly fails in select individuals, conferring benefits to only a subset of patients. While these genomic analyses become increasingly accessible and almost commonplace to all research scientists, clinicians and molecular geneticists, they are faced with the challenging task of interpreting and translating the results from these analyses.
According to the American Cancer Society, an estimated 1.9 million new cancers will be diagnosed in 2022 [1]. Some of the major cancer types affecting the population are prostate, lung & bronchus, colon & rectum, urinary bladder, melanoma of the skin, kidney & renal pelvis, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, oral cavity & pharynx, leukemia, pancreas, breast, colon & rectum, uterine corpus, thyroid. Lung and Bronchus (21%) in both men and women, prostate in men (11%) and breast cancer (31%) in women are the majority cancer types causing death in the population [1]. Even though our understanding of cancer has broadened over the years it is still a major challenge to tackle across the globe. Widely accepted therapy forms for cancer includes biomarker identification and testing for treatment, chemotherapy, hormone therapy, immunotherapy, photodynamic therapy, radiation therapy, stem cell transplant, surgery, and targeted therapy. Immunotherapy (Table 1) is emerging as a forerunner among all the types of cancer therapies for the simple reason as it considers the various dynamics of immune function in an individual. Genomics has played a key role in enabling the identification of therapeutically actionable targets and in guiding the use of immunotherapy.
The human immune response can be divided into two components: Innate and Adaptive. Innate immune response involves classic primitive reaction through cellular and humoral mechanisms. It’s a first line of defence and can comprise a host of cells such as neutrophils, macrophages, and mast cells which kills the invading pathogens while the humoral response can be through enzymes such as Lysozyme that can kill harmful microorganisms.
Antibody discovery has gained immense prominence with the COVID-19 pandemic. Numerous technologies are available to produce antibodies. For several decades now, hybridoma technology has been the mainstay to generate monoclonal antibodies by immortalization of antigen-specific B-lymphocytes.
Since December 2019, the outbreak of Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19) has posed a serious threat to global health. The number of cases increased quickly and has resulted in over four million deaths worldwide, as of July 2021. In response to this, numerous research projects have been conducted to study the disease etiology, the patterns of epidemic, and potential treatments for the disease. The adaptive immune response plays a central role in clearing viral infections and in turn directly influences patients clinical outcomes. T cells play a crucial role in the immune response to viral infection. Since the start of this pandemic, several innovative tools have been made available for studying the role of T cells in viral infection, and other diseases.
COVID-19 pandemic has infected over 23 million individuals and claimed over 800,000 lives globally as of August 2020. SARS-CoV-2, the organism causing COVID-19 belongs to the family of coronaviruses and shares 79% genome sequence identity with SARS-CoV. The spike antigen used by the virus to enter host cells became the prime target for immediate vaccine development efforts because of prior work on SARS-CoV that showed neutralizing antibodies against the spike antigen protected mice and chimps against new infection.
Cancer vaccines are an upcoming therapeutic modality mobilizing body’s own immune system to eradicate advanced tumors and holds tremendous promise for cancer patients unresponsive to checkpoint inhibitors.
