T Cell Conditioning Explains Early Disappearance of the Memory CD8 T Cell Response to Infection

Memory CD8 T cells respond more rapidly to acute intracellular infections than naive CD8 T cells. An understanding of the biological processes involved in memory CD8 T cell recognition of Ag and up-regulation of effector mechanism necessitates analyzing memory CD8 T cells at early time points after infection. In the current study, we show that memory CD8 T cells ostensibly disappear from the spleens, blood, and peripheral organs of mice early after infection with Listeria monocytogenes. This disappearance is critically dependent on Ag, and cell-associated Ag alone can mediate this phenomenon. Further investigations, however, suggest that this disappearance is secondary to T cell-APC interactions, also known as T cell conditioning, and disruption of these putative interactions during splenic processing improves recovery of Ag-specific memory CD8 T cell populations after immunization. Conventional analyses of memory CD8 T cell populations early after infection and possibly in the presence of low levels of Ag (as during chronic infections) may exclude significant numbers of the responding CD8 T cell population.