Nonclassical CD8+ T cells can compensate for classical CD8+ T cell effector responses during murine cytomegalovirus (MCMV) infection. Through a combination of motif-based discovery, predictive algorithms, AlphaFold3 structural modeling, and biological assays, we identified multiple MCMV and human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) peptides that bind to Qa-1 and HLA-E, respectively. In the mouse system, we demonstrated that these virally encoded antigens stimulate Qa-1–restricted CD8+ T cells ex vivo, which can be tracked using MCMV peptide–loaded Qa-1 tetramers...

Plasma membrane rupture by Ninjurin-1 (NINJ1) executes programmed cell death, releasing large cellular damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs). However, the regulation and selectivity of NINJ1-mediated DAMP release remain unexplored.