Staphylococcal enterotoxin B (SEB) activates TCR- and CD28-mediated inflammatory signals in the absence of MHC class II molecules

The inflammatory activity of staphylococcal enterotoxin B (SEB) relies on its capacity to trigger polyclonal T‐cell activation by binding both T‐cell receptor (TCR) and costimulatory receptor CD28 on T cells and MHC class II and B7 molecules on antigen presenting cells (APC). Previous studies highlighted that SEB may bind TCR and CD28 molecules independently of MHC class II, yet the relative contribution of these interactions to the pro‐inflammatory function of SEB remained unclear. Here, we show that binding to MHC class II is dispensable for the inflammatory activity of SEB, whereas binding to TCR, CD28 and B7 molecules is pivotal, in both human primary T cells and Jurkat T cell lines. In particular, our finding is that binding of SEB to B7 molecules suffices to trigger both TCR‐ and CD28‐mediated inflammatory signalling. We also provide evidence that, by strengthening the interaction between CD28 and B7, SEB favours the recruitment of the TCR into the immunological synapse, thus inducing lethal inflammatory signalling