Current Trends in Neoantigen-Based Cancer Vaccines

Cancer immunotherapies are treatments that use drugs or cells to activate patients’ own immune systems against cancer cells. Among them, cancer vaccines have recently been rapidly developed. Based on tumor-specific antigens referred to as neoantigens, these vaccines can be in various forms such as messenger (m)RNA and synthetic peptides to activate cytotoxic T cells and act with or without dendritic cells. Growing evidence suggests that neoantigen-based cancer vaccines possess a very promising future, yet the processes of immune recognition and activation to relay identification of a neoantigen through the histocompatibility complex (MHC) and T-cell receptor (TCR) remain unclear. Here, we describe features of neoantigens and the biological process of validating neoantigens, along with a discussion of recent progress in the scientific development and clinical applications of neoantigen-based cancer vaccines.