{"id":73632,"date":"2026-08-15T05:51:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T03:51:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inmuno.es\/index.php\/2026\/08\/15\/generation-and-characterization-of-a-novel-mhc-ii-tetramer-for-tracking-and-characterization-of-toxin-b-specific-cd4-t-cell-responses\/"},"modified":"2026-08-15T05:51:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T03:51:11","slug":"generation-and-characterization-of-a-novel-mhc-ii-tetramer-for-tracking-and-characterization-of-toxin-b-specific-cd4-t-cell-responses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inmuno.es\/index.php\/2026\/08\/15\/generation-and-characterization-of-a-novel-mhc-ii-tetramer-for-tracking-and-characterization-of-toxin-b-specific-cd4-t-cell-responses\/","title":{"rendered":"Generation and characterization of a novel MHC-II tetramer for tracking and characterization of toxin B-specific CD4+ T cell responses"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p><b>J Immunol<\/b>. 2026 Aug 4;215(8):vkag152. doi: 10.1093\/jimmun\/vkag152.<\/p>\n<p><b>ABSTRACT<\/b><\/p>\n<p>The gastrointestinal pathogen Clostridioides difficile is a major burden for health systems due to high rates of recurrence. C. difficile pathogenesis is mediated by two virulence factors, toxin A (TcdA) and toxin B (TcdB). Antibodies specific for TcdA and TcdB are correlated with protection from symptomatic recurrence; however, the role for CD4+ T cells is poorly understood in part due to the lack of tools to study the toxin-specific CD4+ T cell response. Our group recently demonstrated the antibody and CD4+ T cell response to C. difficile toxins is impaired via the glucosyltransferase activity of the toxins; however, tools do not exist to study the protective capacity and the phenotype of toxin-specific CD4+ T cells. Therefore, we developed a major histocompatibility complex class II (MHC-II) tetramer to identify TcdB-specific CD4+ T cells via flow cytometry. Herein, we identified an immunodominant epitope (TcdB1961-1975) in the CROPs region of TcdB and optimized an MHC-II tetramer for use in tracking and phenotyping TcdB-specific CD4+ T cell responses following multiple different immunization strategies in mice. Utilizing the tetramer, TcdB-specific T follicular helper cells were detected following TcdB-CROPs messenger RNA lipid nanoparticle vaccination validating the advantage of the tetramer. Furthermore, using a modular messenger RNA vector expressing the TcdB1961 peptide covalently bound to the beta chain of MHC-II, we were able to generate a robust population of TcdB-specific CD4+ T cells. These data outline the generation of new tools for the C. difficile field and lay the groundwork for future studies of toxin-specific CD4+ T cell responses.<\/p>\n<p>PMID:<a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/42601060\/?utm_source=SimplePie&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_content=2985117R&amp;ff=20260814235111&amp;v=2.20.1\">42601060<\/a> | DOI:<a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1093\/jimmun\/vkag152\">10.1093\/jimmun\/vkag152<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>J Immunol. 2026 Aug 4;215(8):vkag152. doi: 10.1093\/jimmun\/vkag152. ABSTRACT The gastrointestinal pathogen Clostridioides difficile is a major burden for health systems due to high rates of recurrence. C. difficile pathogenesis is mediated by two virulence factors, toxin A (TcdA) and toxin B (TcdB). Antibodies specific for TcdA and TcdB are correlated with protection from symptomatic recurrence; &#8230; <a title=\"Generation and characterization of a novel MHC-II tetramer for tracking and characterization of toxin B-specific CD4+ T cell responses\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/inmuno.es\/index.php\/2026\/08\/15\/generation-and-characterization-of-a-novel-mhc-ii-tetramer-for-tracking-and-characterization-of-toxin-b-specific-cd4-t-cell-responses\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Generation and characterization of a novel MHC-II tetramer for tracking and characterization of toxin B-specific CD4+ T cell responses\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,71],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-publicaciones","category-the-journal-of-immunology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmuno.es\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmuno.es\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmuno.es\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmuno.es\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmuno.es\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inmuno.es\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73632\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmuno.es\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmuno.es\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmuno.es\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}