Tumor antigens processed and presented by
human leukocyte antigen (HLA) Class I alleles are important targets in
tumor immunotherapies. Clinical trials showed that presence of CD8+ T cells specific to
tumor associated
antigens (TAAs) and
tumor neoantigens is one of the main factors resulting in
tumor regression. Affinity prediction of
tumor antigen epitopes to HLA is an important reference index for
peptide selection, which is highly individualized. In this study, we selected 6 CTAs (
cancer-testis antigens) commonly used in
cancer immunotherapy and top 95 hot mutations from the
Cancer Genome Atlas for analyzing potential
epitopes with high affinities to the common HLA class I molecules in white and East Asian population, respectively. The results showed that the overall difference in CTAs
epitope prediction is small between the two populations. Meanwhile, there is a linear relationship between the CTAs
peptide length and the relative overall
epitope occurrence. However, the difference is bigger for
epitopes prediction of missense mutations between the two populations. It is worth noting that, both in the two populations, the single point mutations with the highest incidences have the lowest
epitope occurrences while the mutations with the highest
epitope occurrences are with low mutation incidences. This may be the result of long-term selection by the host immunosurveillance. Frameshift/inframe indel mutation neoantigens are between CTAs and spot mutation neoantigens in the relationship between
peptide length and predicted
epitope number. Our results help provide clues for
tumor antigen and
epitope selection in
cancer vaccine design.