Skin Commensal Antigens: Taking the Road Less Traveled

The document summarizes a study from February 2018 which found that antigens from the skin commensal bacterium Staphylococcus epidermidis can promote wound healing by inducing CD8+ T cells through a non-classical MHC class I pathway. The study showed that specific S. epidermidis peptide antigens presented by the non-classical MHC molecule H2-M3 led to an accumulation of CD8+ T cells that accelerated wound healing in mice. This discovery underscores the importance of the immune system's interaction with commensal microbes in tissue-specific functions like wound repair and suggests potential therapeutic applications. It also raises questions about the roles of classical and non-classical antigen presentation in immune responses to resident microbes and the functions of commensal-specific T cells.