Bacterial Superantigens as An Agent Provocateur to Initiating Chaos in Immune Response

Document Type : Original Article

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Department of Laboratory Medicine, Faculty of Applied Medical Sciences, Albaha University, Albaha, Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Environmental agents including bacterial superantigens (sAgs) have been shown to contribute to immune response dysregulation, resulting in immunity-related diseases. Staphylococcal enterotoxin B (SEB) is one among the several powerful exotoxins of Staphylococcus aureus, causing a range of clinical diseases from mild food poisoning to deadly non-menstrual toxic shock. Streptococcus pyogenes infections in the deep tissues can create equally potent sAgs (such as streptococcal pyrogenic exotoxin (SPE) -A) that can cause deadly shock. The innate immune response elicited by sAgs is not against the bacteria themselves; rather sAgs driven T cell and cytokine-based immune response aids bacterial survival.
             The current study looked at how healthy people's T cells reacted in vitro to common bacterial sAgs such as SEB and SPE-A. Different Th1 and Th2 cytokines were measured to identify the functional activity of T cells. The findings show that the interaction between PBMC and sAgs has a significant impact on the magnitude of sAg-dependent polyclonal T cell (CD4+) elicitation along with cytokine generation in vitro, which is governed by IL-4 and IL-10 releasing cells. Infection-related sAg-activity possibly influences the clinical outcome of the infection, implying that sAg-activated T cells and cytokines play a crucial role in initiating immunity-related diseases.

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