Normalization of T cell receptor repertoire diversity in patients with advanced colorectal cancer who responded to chemotherapy

To investigate the correlation between normalization of T cell receptor (TCR) repertoire and remission of advanced colorectal cancer. Forty-one patients were randomly assigned to receive either folinic acid/fluorouracil/irinotecan alone (n = 20) or folinic acid/fluorouracil/irinotecan in combination with recombinant human endostatin (n = 21). Efficacy and toxicity were evaluated, and changes in TCR repertoire diversity were assessed by detecting the spectratypes of TCR complementarity-determining region three before and after several cycles of therapy. A scoring system was used to quantify changes in the TCR repertoire over time. The results demonstrated that the TCR repertoire exhibited a higher degree of normalization among patients undergoing remission relative to patients experiencing tumor progression. The results of the current study showed a positive correlation between TCR repertoire normalization and remission of colorectal cancer, suggesting that dynamic monitoring of TCR repertoire diversity may have potential prognostic value in the clinical setting.