Assessment of clonal diversity of T cell responses against human CMV (HCMV), a major cause of morbidity in immunodepressed patients, provides important insights into the molecular basis of T cell immunodominance, and has also clinical implications for the immunomonitoring and immunotherapy of HCMV infections. We performed an in-depth molecular and functional characterization of CD8 T cells directed against an immunodominant HLA-A2-restricted epitope derived from HCMV protein pp65 (NLV/A2) in steady state and pathological situations associated with HCMV reactivation. NLV/A2-specific T cells in healthy HCMV-seropositive donors showed limited clonal diversity and usage of a restricted set of TCR Vβ regions. Although TCRβ-chain junctional sequences were highly diverse, a large fraction of NLV/A2-specific T cells derived from distinct individuals showed several recurrent (so-called “public”) TCR features associated in some cases with full conservation of the TCRα chain junctional region. A dramatic clonal focusing of NLV/A2-specific T cells was observed in situations of HCMV reactivation and/or chronic inflammation, which resulted in selection of a single clonotype displaying similar public TCR features in several patients. In most instances the NLV/A2-specific dominant clonotypes showed higher affinity for their Ag than subdominant ones, thus suggesting that TCR affinity/avidity is the primary driving force underlying repertoire focusing along chronic antigenic stimulation.

To test the hypothesis that the Staphylococcus aureus enterotoxin gene cluster (egc) can generate new enterotoxin genes by recombination, we analyzed the egc locus in a broad panel of 666 clinical isolates of S. aureus. egc was present in 63% of isolates, confirming its high prevalence. The archetypal organization of the egc locus, consisting of five enterotoxin genes plus two pseudogenes, was found in 409 of 421 egc-positive strains. The egc locus was incomplete in a few strains and occasionally harbored an insertion sequence and transposase genes. These strains may represent evolutionary intermediates of the egc locus. One strain with an atypical egc locus produced two new enterotoxins, designated SElV and SElU2, generated by (i) recombination between selm and sei, producing selv, and (ii) a limited deletion in the ent1-ent2 pseudogenes, producing selu2. Recombinant SElV and SElU2 had superantigen activity, as they specifically activated the T-cell families V␤ 6, V␤ 18, and V␤ 21 (SElV) and V␤ 13.2 and V␤ 14 (SElU2). Immunoscope analysis showed a Gaussian CDR3 size distribution of T-cell receptor V␤ chain junctional transcripts of expanded V␤ subsets in toxin-stimulated cultures, reflecting a high level of polyclonality. These data show that egc is indeed capable of generating new superantigen genes through recombination.Staphylococcus aureus produces a large variety of exotoxins, including staphylococcal enterotoxins A to E (SEA to SEE), SEG to SER, and SEU; staphylococcal enterotoxin-like toxins (SEls); and toxic shock syndrome (TSS) toxin-1 (5, 23). These toxins are responsible for specific acute clinical syndromes such as TSS (due to both TSS toxin-1 SEs and SEls), food poisoning (due to SEs), and staphylococcal scarlet fever (considered a mild form of TSS) (10,26,34).All these toxins share certain structural and biological properties, suggesting that they derive from a common ancestor (16,21). They exhibit superantigen activity, stimulating polyclonal T-cell proliferation through coligation between major histocompatibility complex class II molecules on antigen-presenting cells (APC) and the variable portion of the T-cell antigen receptor ␤ chain or ␣ chain (TCR V␤ and TCR V␣, respectively), with no need for prior APC processing (4,13,21,22,37,39). The pattern of V␤/V␣ activation is specific to each superantigen (4, 12). T-cell/APC activation by these toxins leads to the release of various cytokines/lymphokines and interferon, enhances endotoxic shock, and causes T-and B-cell immunosuppression, all of which may undermine the immune response against bacterial infection (5, 10, 25).All the genes encoding these toxins are harbored by mobile elements, including bacteriophages, pathogenicity islands, genomic islands, and plasmids (10,20,28,36). Only the enterotoxin gene cluster (egc) is organized as an operon, consisting of two enterotoxin genes (seg and sei), three enterotoxinlike genes with proven superantigenic activity but not emetic properties (selo, selm and seln), and two pseudogenes (ent1 and -2). This ...

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Protective T cell responses elicited along chronic human CMV (HCMV) infections are sometimes dominated by CD8 T cell clones bearing highly related or identical public TCR in unrelated individuals. To understand the principles that guide emergence of these public T cell responses, we have performed structural, biophysical, and functional analyses of an immunodominant public TCR (RA14) directed against a major HLA-A*0201-restricted HCMV Ag (pp65495–503) and selected in vivo from a diverse repertoire after chronic stimulations. Unlike the two immunodominant public TCRs crystallized so far, which focused on one peptide hotspot, the HCMV-specific RA14 TCR interacts with the full array of available peptide residues. The conservation of some peptide-MHC complex-contacting amino acids by lower-affinity TCRs suggests a shared TCR-peptide-MHC complex docking mode and supports an Ag-driven selection of optimal TCRs. Therefore, the emergence of a public TCR of an oligoclonal Ag-specific response after repeated viral stimulations is based on a receptor displaying a high structural complementarity with the entire peptide and focusing on three peptide hotspots. This highlights key parameters underlying the selection of a protective T cell response against HCMV infection, which remains a major health issue in patients undergoing bone marrow transplantation.