Circulating T-cell receptor repertoire for cancer early detection.

ABSTRACT: Liquid biopsy is a promising non-invasive technology that is capable of diagnosing cancer. However, current ctDNA-based approaches detect only a minority of early-stage disease. We set out to improve the sensitivity of liquid biopsy by harnessing tumor recognition by T cells through the sequencing of the circulating T-cell receptor repertoire. We studied a cohort of 463 patients with lung cancer (86% stage I) and 587 subjects without cancer using gDNA extracted from blood buffy coats. We performed TCR β chain sequencing to yield a median of 113,571 TCR clonotypes per sample and built a TCR sequence similarity graph to cluster clonotypes into TCR repertoire functional units (RFUs). The TCR frequencies of RFUs were tested for association with cancer status and RFUs with a statistically signi

SUBMITTER: Li Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12276287 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature