Molecular pathology selected abstracts
June 2019—Link between immunogenic neoantigens derived from gene fusions and T-cell responses. Immunotherapy is quickly emerging as an important therapeutic strategy for hematologic and solid tumors. In principle, immune cells recognize unique non-self antigens expressed by cancer cells and this serves as the initial step in eliminating such cells. Among the metrics used to assess the likelihood of response to immunotherapy is the presence of a high level of somatic mutations, referred to as tumor mutation burden (TMB). This serves as a surrogate for extrapolating the level of neoantigens ex- pressed by cancer cells.