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Published on: February 20, 2021
Comparative inflammatory properties of staphylococcal superantigenic enterotoxins SEA and SEG: implications for
Olivier Dauwalder1, Damien Thomas, Tristan Ferry
1Université Claude Bernard, INSERM E230, IFR-62, Lyon, France.
Abstract:
The severity of Staphylococcus aureus sepsis is positively associated with staphylococcal enterotoxin A (SEA) and negatively associated with the enterotoxin gene cluster (egc), which encodes five staphylococcal enterotoxins. We postulated that the variable, clinical severity of S. aureus sepsis might be a result of differences in the inflammatory properties of staphylococcal superantigens. We therefore compared the inflammatory properties of SEA with those of staphylococcal entérotoxin G (SEG), a member of the five egc superantigens. We found that SEA and SEG had similar superantigenic properties, as they induced CD69 expression on T lymphocytes and selective expansion of Vbeta subpopulations. Contrary to SEG, however, SEA induced a strong proinflammatory/Th1 response, including TNF-alpha and MIP-1alpha production. These results suggest that the association of SEA with the severity of S. aureus septic shock, characterized by a deleterious, inflammatory cascade, may be explained partly by the specific proinflammatory properties of this superantigen.
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