MHC-I Ligand Discovery Using Targeted Database Searches of Mass Spectrometry Data: Implications for T-Cell Immunotherapies

Class I major histocompatibility complex (MHC-I)-bound peptide ligands dictate the activation and specificity of CD8+ T cells and thus are important for devising T-cell immunotherapies. In recent times, advances in mass spectrometry (MS) have enabled the precise identification of these MHC-I peptides, wherein MS spectra are compared against a reference proteome. Unfortunately, matching these spectra to reference proteome databases is hindered by...