Identification of Neoantigen-Reactive Tumor-Infiltrating Lymphocytes in Primary Bladder Cancer

Immune checkpoint inhibitors are effective in treating a variety of malignancies, including metastatic bladder cancer. A generally accepted hypothesis suggests that immune checkpoint inhibitors induce tumor regressions by reactivating a population of endogenous tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) that recognize cancer neoantigens. Although previous studies have identified neoantigen-reactive TILs from several types of cancer, no study to date has shown whether neoantigen-reactive TILs can be found in bladder tumors. To address this, we generated TIL cultures from patients with primary bladder cancer and tested their ability to recognize tumor-specific mutations. We found that CD4+ TILs from one patient recognized mutated C-terminal binding protein 1 in an MHC class II–restricted manner. This finding suggests that neoantigen-reactive TILs reside in bladder cancer, which may help explain the effectiveness of immune checkpoint blockade in this disease and also provides a rationale for the future use of adoptive T cell therapy targeting neoantigens in bladder cancer.