Fig. 1

Cancer vaccination from antigen discovery to clinical application. Neoepitopes derived from cancer mutations used as antigen targets for cancer vaccination can either be predicted through next-generation genome/transcriptome sequencing approaches or a direct peptide target identification is feasible by mass spectrometry-based analysis, which allows the analysis of all naturally presented HLA ligands, termed the HLA ligandome or immunopeptidome of cancer cells. Promising targets for vaccination are classical neoepitopes derived from point- or frame-shift mutations, neoepitopes from gene fusions and non-mutated tumor-associated antigens with a high presentation frequency across multiple patients as well as the novel category of cryptic antigens. Different concepts for clinical vaccine application exist, namely personalized vaccines, warehouse-based personalization, or one-for-all vaccines. Figure created with BioRender.com