Use it or lose it: Establishment and persistence of T cell memory

Abstract

Pre-existing T cell memory provides substantial protection against viral, bacterial, and parasitic infections.The generation of protective T cell memory constitutes a primary goal for cell-mediatedvaccines, thus understanding the mechanistic basis of memory development and maintenance are of major importance. The widely accepted idea that T cell memory pools are directly descended from the effector populations has been challenged by recent reports that provide evidence for the early establishment of T cell memory and suggest that the putative memory precursorT cells do not undergo full expansion to effector status. Moreover, it appears that once the memory T cells are established early in li..