Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • In Brief
  • Published:

T cells

MAIT cells specific for microbial metabolites

Nature Reviews Immunology volume 12, page 743 (2012)Cite this article

Subjects

Access through your institution
Buy or subscribe

The T cell receptor (TCR) of the innate-like mucosal-associated invariant T (MAIT) cells consists of an invariant Vα chain combined with limited conserved Vβ chains, but the antigens recognized by MAIT cell TCRs were unknown. These TCRs are restricted to the monomorphic MHC class I-related protein (MR1), so Kjer-Nielsen et al. screened for antigens that can be presented by MR1. They observed that MR1 binds small organic compounds originating from vitamins (such as a pterin ring-containing derivative of folic acid) through conserved residues. Strikingly, folic acid derivatives presented by MR1 failed to activate MAIT cells, but this was not the case with MR1-binding metabolites of riboflavin, which are secreted by MAIT cell-activating microbes. So, the authors suggest that competition of pathogen-derived vitamin metabolites with other small organic compounds (possibly derived from diet or gut microbiota) for MR1 binding may shape MAIT cell responses.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Access through your institution

Buy this article

  • Purchase on SpringerLink
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER

  1. Kjer-Nielsen, L. et al. MR1 presents microbial vitamin B metabolites to MAIT cells. Nature 10 Oct 2012 (doi:10.1038/nature11605)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors
  1. Maria Papatriantafyllou
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Papatriantafyllou, M. MAIT cells specific for microbial metabolites. Nat Rev Immunol 12, 743 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nri3334

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nri3334

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing