Identifying expanding TCR clonotypes with a longitudinal Bayesian mixture model and their associations with cancer patient prognosis, metastasis-directed therapy, and VJ gene enrichment

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Swanson, David, Sherry, Alexander, Haymaker, Cara, Reuben, Alexandre, Tang, Chad
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866911360158269440
author Swanson, David
Sherry, Alexander
Haymaker, Cara
Reuben, Alexandre
Tang, Chad
author_facet Swanson, David
Sherry, Alexander
Haymaker, Cara
Reuben, Alexandre
Tang, Chad
contents Examination of T-cell receptor (TCR) clonality has become a way of understanding immunologic response to cancer and its interventions in recent years. An aspect of these analyses is determining which receptors expand or contract statistically significantly as a function of an exogenous perturbation such as therapeutic intervention. We characterize the commonly used Fisher's exact test approach for such analyses and propose an alternative formulation that does not necessitate pairwise, within-patient comparisons. We develop this flexible Bayesian longitudinal mixture model that accommodates variable length patient followup and handles missingness where present, not omitting data in estimation because of structural practicalities. Once clones are partitioned by the model into dynamic (expanding or contracting) and static categories, one can associate their counts or other characteristics with disease state, interventions, baseline biomarkers, and patient prognosis. We apply these developments to a cohort of prostate cancer patients who underwent randomized metastasis-directed therapy or not. Our analyses reveal a significant increase in clonal expansions among MDT patients and their association with later progressions both independent and within strata of MDT. Analysis of receptor motifs and VJ gene enrichment combinations using a high-dimensional penalized log-linear model we develop also suggests distinct biological characteristics of expanding clones, with and without inducement by MDT.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_04536
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Identifying expanding TCR clonotypes with a longitudinal Bayesian mixture model and their associations with cancer patient prognosis, metastasis-directed therapy, and VJ gene enrichment
Swanson, David
Sherry, Alexander
Haymaker, Cara
Reuben, Alexandre
Tang, Chad
Quantitative Methods
Methodology
92-08, 92B10, 92B15
Examination of T-cell receptor (TCR) clonality has become a way of understanding immunologic response to cancer and its interventions in recent years. An aspect of these analyses is determining which receptors expand or contract statistically significantly as a function of an exogenous perturbation such as therapeutic intervention. We characterize the commonly used Fisher's exact test approach for such analyses and propose an alternative formulation that does not necessitate pairwise, within-patient comparisons. We develop this flexible Bayesian longitudinal mixture model that accommodates variable length patient followup and handles missingness where present, not omitting data in estimation because of structural practicalities. Once clones are partitioned by the model into dynamic (expanding or contracting) and static categories, one can associate their counts or other characteristics with disease state, interventions, baseline biomarkers, and patient prognosis. We apply these developments to a cohort of prostate cancer patients who underwent randomized metastasis-directed therapy or not. Our analyses reveal a significant increase in clonal expansions among MDT patients and their association with later progressions both independent and within strata of MDT. Analysis of receptor motifs and VJ gene enrichment combinations using a high-dimensional penalized log-linear model we develop also suggests distinct biological characteristics of expanding clones, with and without inducement by MDT.
title Identifying expanding TCR clonotypes with a longitudinal Bayesian mixture model and their associations with cancer patient prognosis, metastasis-directed therapy, and VJ gene enrichment
topic Quantitative Methods
Methodology
92-08, 92B10, 92B15
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.04536