The last few years have seen an enormous jump in our knowledge and understanding of T-
cell activation by superantigens. Clearly, a great number of infectious and parasitic …

SUPERANTIGENS (SAgs) are viral or bacterial proteins that act as potent T-cell stimulants
and have been implicated in a number of human diseases, including toxic shock …

We have examined the interaction of the microbial superantigen staphylococcal enterotoxin
A (SEA) with peptides corresponding to overlapping regions of the T-cell antigen receptor …

CD4+ T cells are equipped to detect two major classes of ligands. Infectious microbial
agents, including bacteria and retroviruses, carry a class of proteins termed superantigens …

We investigated the role of the complementarity determining region 1 (CDR1) of T cell
receptor (TCR) beta chain both in antigen/major histocompatibility complex I (MHC I) and in …

Superantigens encoded in the genome or released by bacteria have been identified as
potent modulators of the murine immune system. High frequencies of mature or immature T …

Amino acid residues that are critical in maintaining the framework structure of
immunoglobulin heavy-and light-chain variable (V) regions are strongly conserved in the V …

The current model of superantigen activity assumes that the superantigen simultaneously
binds to both the MHC molecule on the presenting cell and the V~ element of the TCR …

Superantigens (SAGs) are a class of immunostimulatory proteins of bacterial or viral origin
that activate T cells by binding to the Vβ domain of the T cell antigen receptor (TCR). The …

Recent studies have shown that only a subset of major histocompatibility complex (MHC)
class II molecules are able to present bacterial superantigens to T cells, leading to the …