Technological advances in recent years have allowed for an ever-expanding ability to
analyze and quantify in vivo immune responses. MHC tetramers, intracellular cytokine
staining, an increasing repertoire of transgenic and “knockout” mice, and the detailed
characterization of a variety of infectious models have all facilitated more precise and
definitive analyses of the generation and function of cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL).
Understanding the mechanisms behind the differentiation of effector and memory CTL is of …