The present disclosure provides compositions and methods for the generation of an antibody or immunogenic composition, such as a vaccine, through epitope focusing by variable effective antigen surface concentration. Generally, the composition and methods of the disclosure comprise three steps: a “design process” comprising one or more in silico bioinformatics steps to select and generate a library of potential antigens for use in the immunogenic composition; a “formulation process”, comprising in vitro testing of potential antigens, using various biochemical assays, and further combining two or more antigens to generate one or more immunogenic compositions; and an “administering” step, whereby the immunogenic composition is administered to a host animal, immune cell, subject or patient. Further steps may also be included, such as the isolation and production of antibodies raised by host immune response to the immunogenic composition.

The present invention relates to a computer-implemented method for providing a coverage of an oligonucleotide set for a plurality of nucleic acids. The present invention provides nucleic acid sequences with the generation of probe-hybridized amplicons and/or nucleic acid sequences without the generation of probe-hybridized amplicons, by a combination of oligonucleotides according to match or mismatch information and position information of a forward primer, a probe, and a reverse primer included in an oligonucleotide set, and thus can provide a coverage of the oligonucleotide set for a plurality of nucleic acid sequences, can analyze specificity of the oligonucleotide set, and can modify the sequences of the oligonucleotides included in the oligonucleotide set for the improvement in specificity. According to the present invention, the specificity analysis results can be compared between an oligonucleotide set of an existing product and an oligonucleotide set of a new product, and the specificity change of the oligonucleotide set can be easily monitored.

The present invention relates to a computer-implemented method for providing a coverage of an oligonucleotide set for a plurality of nucleic acids. The present invention provides nucleic acid sequences with the generation of probe-hybridized amplicons and/or nucleic acid sequences without the generation of probe-hybridized amplicons, by a combination of oligonucleotides according to match or mismatch information and position information of a forward primer, a probe, and a reverse primer included in an oligonucleotide set, and thus can provide a coverage of the oligonucleotide set for a plurality of nucleic acid sequences, can analyze specificity of the oligonucleotide set, and can modify the sequences of the oligonucleotides included in the oligonucleotide set for the improvement in specificity. According to the present invention, the specificity analysis results can be compared between an oligonucleotide set of an existing product and an oligonucleotide set of a new product, and the specificity change of the oligonucleotide set can be easily monitored.

The invention provides oncogenomic methods for detecting tumors by identifying circulating tumor DNA. A patient-specific reference directed acyclic graph (DAG) represents known human genomic sequences and non-tumor DNA from the patient as well as known tumor-associated mutations. Sequence reads from cell-free plasma DNA from the patient are mapped to the patient-specific genomic reference graph. Any of the known tumor-associated mutations found in the reads and any de novo mutations found in the reads are reported as the patient's tumor mutation burden.

The invention provides oncogenomic methods for detecting tumors by identifying circulating tumor DNA. A patient-specific reference directed acyclic graph (DAG) represents known human genomic sequences and non-tumor DNA from the patient as well as known tumor-associated mutations. Sequence reads from cell-free plasma DNA from the patient are mapped to the patient-specific genomic reference graph. Any of the known tumor-associated mutations found in the reads and any de novo mutations found in the reads are reported as the patient's tumor mutation burden.

Methods and systems for single molecule sequencing using concatemers of copies of sense and antisense strands. Concatemers are provided, for example, by carrying out rolling circle amplification on a circular molecule having sense and antisense regions to produce repeated copies of the sense and antisense regions connected by linking regions. The circular molecules can be produced by ligating hairpin adapters to each end of a double-stranded nucleic acid having a sense and antisense strand. The ligations can be carried out, for example using blunt end ligation. In some cases, a single molecule consensus sequence for a single template molecule is obtained. A single read from each template molecule can be obtained by comparing the sequence information of the sense and antisense regions.

Methods and systems for single molecule sequencing using concatemers of copies of sense and antisense strands. Concatemers are provided, for example, by carrying out rolling circle amplification on a circular molecule having sense and antisense regions to produce repeated copies of the sense and antisense regions connected by linking regions. The circular molecules can be produced by ligating hairpin adapters to each end of a double-stranded nucleic acid having a sense and antisense strand. The ligations can be carried out, for example using blunt end ligation. In some cases, a single molecule consensus sequence for a single template molecule is obtained. A single read from each template molecule can be obtained by comparing the sequence information of the sense and antisense regions.

The present invention belongs to the field of diagnosis of disease. Thus the present invention is focused on a method and kit and system for quantifying the level of minimal residual disease (MRD) in a subject who has been treated for said disease, as well as a method of treatment of said disease in a subject which comprises a step of quantifying the level of minimal residual diseases, wherein said quantifying comprises: (a) identifying, amplifying and sequencing a nucleotide sequence in a biological sample obtained from said subject after treatment for said disease, wherein the gDNA of said biological sample has an average weight, k, per cell, and wherein said nucleotide sequence is identified using primers and is amplified using an amount, D, to afford a first list of characters; (b) identifying, amplifying and sequencing a nucleotide sequence in a biological sample obtained from a subject with said disease using the same primers as in step (a) to afford a second list of characters; (c) determining, for each first list of characters obtained in step (a), the degree of similarity, DS, with each second list of characters obtained in step (b); (d) selecting, for each first list of characters obtained in step (a), the DS of highest value, DS.sub.HV; (e) adding up the number of first lists of characters obtained in step (a) which have a DS.sub.HV that is greater than a threshold value, T, to obtain L.sub.c; (f) adding up the total number of lists of characters, L.sub.t, in the first list of characters; and (g) calculating the level of minimal residual disease (MRD) according to either of the following formulae:
MRD=(L.sub.c×k)/(L.sub.t×D)
or
MRD=L.sub.c/L.sub.t
or
MRD=L.sub.c×(D/k)/L.sub.t.sup.2.

The present invention belongs to the field of diagnosis of disease. Thus the present invention is focused on a method and kit and system for quantifying the level of minimal residual disease (MRD) in a subject who has been treated for said disease, as well as a method of treatment of said disease in a subject which comprises a step of quantifying the level of minimal residual diseases, wherein said quantifying comprises: (a) identifying, amplifying and sequencing a nucleotide sequence in a biological sample obtained from said subject after treatment for said disease, wherein the gDNA of said biological sample has an average weight, k, per cell, and wherein said nucleotide sequence is identified using primers and is amplified using an amount, D, to afford a first list of characters; (b) identifying, amplifying and sequencing a nucleotide sequence in a biological sample obtained from a subject with said disease using the same primers as in step (a) to afford a second list of characters; (c) determining, for each first list of characters obtained in step (a), the degree of similarity, DS, with each second list of characters obtained in step (b); (d) selecting, for each first list of characters obtained in step (a), the DS of highest value, DS.sub.HV; (e) adding up the number of first lists of characters obtained in step (a) which have a DS.sub.HV that is greater than a threshold value, T, to obtain L.sub.c; (f) adding up the total number of lists of characters, L.sub.t, in the first list of characters; and (g) calculating the level of minimal residual disease (MRD) according to either of the following formulae:
MRD=(L.sub.c×k)/(L.sub.t×D)
or
MRD=L.sub.c/L.sub.t
or
MRD=L.sub.c×(D/k)/L.sub.t.sup.2.

T cells, notably CD8 T cells, are known to be essential players in tumor eradication as the presence of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILS) in several cancers positively correlates with a good prognosis. To eliminate tumor cells, CD8 T cells recognize tumor antigens, which are MHC I-associated peptides present at the surface of tumor cells, with no or very low expression on normal cells. Described herein a proteogenomic approach using RNA-sequencing data from cancer and normal-matched mTEC.sup.hi samples in order to identify non-tolerogenic tumor-specific antigens derived from (i) coding and non-coding regions of the genome, (ii) non-synonymous single-base mutations or short insertion/deletions and more complex rearrangements as well as (iii) endogenous retroelements, which works regardless of the sample's mutational load or complexity.