system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: How does Toxic Shock Syndrome happen and why does it occur so quickly?
gpt
To put it simply, some bacteria can produce toxins that result in toxic shock syndrome. Normally, you have these immune cells that take in a pathogen, break it down and present its pieces on the surface. Then another immune cell type called a T cell can come by and recognize the present antigen thereby getting activated. Usually way less than 1 percent of T cells get activated. But when you have these special toxins, they behave as super antigens. They don't need to be processed by an immune cell and presented, they just bind to the protein that usually presents them on the surface of these cells, directly from the outside. And they can activate a huge number of T cells (up to 30 percent). These cells then cause a cytokine storm (a gigantic number of inflammatory and other signals get released). This causes the body to react so dramatically and so quickly and usually so little T cells induce a whole immune response, so a huge number will be ultra fast and ultra dramatic.