1. ¹Department of Microbiology and Immunology, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia
2. ²Immunology Division, The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Parkville, Victoria, Australia

Correspondence: Professor FR Carbone, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, The University of Melbourne, Royal Parade, Parkville, Victoria 3010, Australia. E-mail: fcarbone@unimelb.edu.au

³These authors contributed equally to this work.

Received 16 April 2007; Accepted 26 April 2007; Published online 5 June 2007.

Abstract

T-cell receptor (TCR) transgenic mice have proven useful for the study of various immune parameters. Despite this, it has been suggested that transferred T cells respond differently to their endogenous counterparts at least in terms of conversion to antigen-experienced populations bearing memory cell markers. Here, we have compared the response of TCR transgenic T cells to endogenous populations within the context of infection with herpes simplex virus. We found that adoptive transfer at numbers approaching those of the endogenous virus-specific subset results in a response with similar kinetics, magnitude and memory subset conversion. This suggests that this form of optimized T-cell transfer remains a useful means of tracking antiviral immune responses.