The severity of brain pathology is not altered during acute infection in VP2121‐130 transgenic mice.  To determine whether the loss of virus‐specific CD8+ T cells had an effect on the severity of pathology observed in the brain after 7 days of infection, we assessed the pathology in brains isolated from FVB Db VP2121‐130 mice and in transgene negative littermate controls (Figure 5A,B). This evidence concerns the gene CD8A and infection.