Harnessing Tumor-Specific Transcript Diversity Uncovers a Shared Neoantigen Reservoir for Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma

Abstract

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is refractory to immunotherapy due to its immunologically cold microenvironment and the scarcity of mutation-derived neoantigens. Here, we introduce NeoAPP, a computational tool designed to systematically decode neoantigens arising from tumor-specific transcripts (TSTs) generated by transcriptional dysregulation. Multi-cohort transcriptomic profiling of 413 PDAC samples using NeoAPP reveal a median of 351 neoantigens per sample derived from 56 neoantigen-encoding TSTs (neoTSTs), surpassing mutation-derived counterparts in both abundance and patient coverage. Mechanistic analyses show that non-canonical splicing junction and transposable element activation drive neoantigen generation, while FOXA2-regulated promoter usage constitutes a potential major source of neoTSTs. Tumor-derived neoTSTs are also detected in extracellular vesicles and cancer-associated fibroblasts, implicating stromal crosstalk in immune modulation. Vaccination with neoTSTs induce CD8+ T cell responses in HLA-A*02:01/A*11:01 transgenic mice and suppressed tumor growth in syngeneic PDAC models. Collectively, this work establishes TST-derived neoantigens as a dominant and therapeutically actionable antigen reservoir in PDAC, advancing a transcriptome-guided framework for neoantigen discovery with potential to overcome immune resistance in low-mutation cancers. Abstract Figure O_FIG O_LINKSMALLFIG WIDTH=200 HEIGHT=196 SRC="FIGDIR/small/705024v1_ufig1.gif" ALT="Figure 1"> View larger version (71K): org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@82ff31org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@401342org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@b0771corg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@15c03ef_HPS_FORMAT_FIGEXP M_FIG C_FIG