Department of Internal Medicine, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX 77555-0655, USA.
Toxins (Basel). 2010 Aug;2(8):2177-97. doi: 10.3390/toxins2082177. Epub 2010 Aug 18.
Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) is a Gram positive bacterium that is carried by about one third of the general population and is responsible for common and serious diseases. These diseases include food poisoning and toxic shock syndrome, which are caused by exotoxins produced by S. aureus. Of the more than 20 Staphylococcal enterotoxins, SEA and SEB are the best characterized and are also regarded as superantigens because of their ability to bind to class II MHC molecules on antigen presenting cells and stimulate large populations of T cells that share variable regions on the β chain of the T cell receptor. The result of this massive T cell activation is a cytokine bolus leading to an acute toxic shock. These proteins are highly resistant to denaturation, which allows them to remain intact in contaminated food and trigger disease outbreaks. A recognized problem is the emergence of multi-drug resistant strains of S. aureus and these are a concern in the clinical setting as they are a common cause of antibiotic-associated diarrhea in hospitalized patients. In this review, we provide an overview of the current understanding of these proteins.
金黄色葡萄球菌（S. aureus）是一种革兰氏阳性细菌，约有三分之一的普通人群携带该细菌，它可导致常见和严重的疾病。这些疾病包括由金黄色葡萄球菌产生的外毒素引起的食物中毒和中毒性休克综合征。在超过 20 种葡萄球菌肠毒素中，SEA 和 SEB 是研究最充分的两种，并且由于它们能够与抗原呈递细胞上的 II 类 MHC 分子结合并刺激共享 T 细胞受体β链可变区的大量 T 细胞，因此也被认为是超抗原。这种大量 T 细胞激活的结果是细胞因子爆发，导致急性中毒性休克。这些蛋白质对变性具有高度抗性，这使得它们能够在污染的食物中保持完整，并引发疾病爆发。一个公认的问题是金黄色葡萄球菌多药耐药株的出现，这些菌株在临床环境中令人担忧，因为它们是住院患者抗生素相关性腹泻的常见原因。在这篇综述中，我们概述了对这些蛋白质的现有认识。
