Toxic shock syndrome toxin

Toxic Shock Syndrome Toxin (TSST) is a superantigen with a size of 22KDa ^[1]produced by somewhere between 5% and 25% of Staphylococcus aureus isolates. It causes toxic shock syndrome by stimulating the release of large amounts of interleukin-1, interleukin-2 and tumour necrosis factor. In general, the toxin is not produced by bacteria growing in the blood; rather, it is produced at the local site of an infection, and then enters the blood stream.

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