ASNEO: Identification of personalized alternative splicing based neoantigens with RNA-seq

Abstract

Cancer neoantigens have shown great potential in immunotherapy, while current software focuses on identifying neoantigens which are derived from SNVs, indels or gene fusions. Alternative splicing widely occurs in tumor samples and it has been proven to contribute to the generation of candidate neoantigens. Here we present <i>ASNEO</i>, which is an integrated computational pipeline for the identification of personalized Alternative Splicing based NEOantigens with RNA-seq. Our analyses showed that <i>ASNEO</i> could identify neopeptides which are presented by MHC I complex through mass spectrometry data validation. When <i>ASNEO</i> was applied to two immunotherapy-treated cohorts, we found that alternative splicing based neopeptides generally have a higher immune score than that of somatic neopeptides and alternative splicing based neopeptides could be a marker to predict patient survival pattern. Our identification of alternative splicing derived neopeptides would contribute to a more complete understanding of the tumor immune landscape. Prediction of patient-specific alternative splicing neopeptides has the potential to contribute to the development of personalized cancer vaccines.