Structural analysis of superantigen binding to human receptor

Superantigens are bacterial toxins that bind to the T cell receptor and cause massive T cell activation and cytokine production, leading to food poisoning and toxic shock syndrome. Recently, we discovered that superantigens also can bind directly to the signalling domain of human cytokine receptors. The biological outcome of this interaction is yet to be discovered.
To resolve the structural details of the complex, we have performed X-ray crystallography, mass spectrometry cross-linking (MS-XL) analysis to identify crucial residues for the complex formation and we have investigated the binding affinity applying surface plasmon resonance (SPR).