Sleeping with the Enemy— Endogenous Superantigens in Humans

AbstractWe usually think of superantigens (SAg) as dangerous toxins that may cause toxic shock syndrome and death (Marrack and Kappler, 1990). Now, based on two papers in this issue of Immunity, it seems that we all have SAg genes within us, lying dormant and waiting to be activated under special circumstances (Sutkowski et al., 2001; Stauffer et al., 2001)