Evidence for an Endogenous Superantigen Deleting Human Vβ2 Positive T‐Lymphocytes

Chronic deletion, escape from deletion and activation of mouse mammary tumor virus superantigen-reactive T cells in C57BL/10 mice

“…The search for endogenous sag in humans is, of course, harder than in mice in which extensive V g -specific deletion of T cells was made more apparent by the existence of strains expressing or lacking H2-E. Thus whilst most evidence suggests that gross deletions of specific V g populations in humans may occur but are uncommon [29,30], it is possible that T cell deletions are not on their own a sufficiently informative parameter to examine, if, as in C57BL/10 mice, deletion occurs chronically in the periphery. However, the data in this report indicate that evidence of chronic deletion of specific T cell populations may be found in appropriately controlled studies of CD4 expression levels and overrepresentation in activated/memory T cell subsets.…”

“…First it is important to understand the contribution of Mtv sag to T cell development in common laboratory mouse strains, in particular because TCR-transgenic systems utilizing potentially Mtv sag-reactive T cell receptors derived from C57BL mice have been used to address a number of immunological questions such as the affinity of TCR/MHC/peptide interactions required for positive and negative selection, and the functional activity of specific T cell populations responding to peptide in the periphery [26][27][28]. Second, the search for the activity of endogenous sag in humans has centered largely on the attempt to identify gross deletions of T cells bearing specific TCR V g chains [29,30]. The data in this report suggest that sag-mediated deletion may be a chronic phenomenon more often than has been appreciated.…”

Genetics of graft‐versus‐host disease, I. A locus on Chromosome 1 influences development of acute graft‐versus‐host disease in a major histocompatibility complex mismatched murine model

“…Either way, the result is of considerable significance to human bone marrow transplantation. Although it was previously thought that humans do not have endogenous superantigens comparable to the Mtv antigens found in the mouse genome, it has recently been convincingly demonstrated that the human genome does contain such antigens and that they may influence immune responses in a manner similar to the endogenous superantigens of the mouse 34 . 35 The human genome is also known to contain polymorphisms in many immune effector molecules 1 –6 .…”