Figure 3.

Tracing clonal families using receptor repertoires as barcodes

Functional assessment of clonal expansion in receptor repertoire sequencing data can shed light on the nature of systemic and localized adaptive immune responses. Clonotype assignments extend measures of repertoire diversity and clonal expansion. Comparison of de novo sequenced receptor chains with reference databases can provide estimates of target antigen origins. Spatial TCR/BCR sequencing or multiplex in situ hybridization methods to spatially resolve hyperexpanded receptor chains of interest help contextualize the trafficking of a B cell or T cell clonal family within the tumor microenvironment and tumor-draining lymph nodes.