From:  Next-generation cancer vaccines: targeting cryptic and non-canonical antigens for precision immunotherapy

 Key features distinguishing canonical, cryptic, and non-canonical antigen types in tumour immunology.

FeatureCanonicalCrypticNon-canonical
OriginAnnotated ORFsUnannotated regionsNon-coding or shifted ORFs
Start codonAUGNear-cognate codonsAUG/Near-cognate
StabilityStableOften unstableUnstable/Short-lived
ImmunogenicityModerateHighHigh
Tumour specificityVariableHighHigh
Detection methodsMS, WES, RNA-seqImmunopeptidomicsRibo-seq, MS

MS: mass spectrometry; ORFs: open reading frames; Ribo-seq: ribosome profiling; RNA-seq: RNA sequencing; WES: whole exome sequencing.