Irrespective of these partly inevitable drawbacks, the findings obtained in the present study were surprisingly unambiguous in the sense that they demonstrated a largely unaffected response of peripheral or splenic, na?ve or antigen experienced effector CD4+/CD8+ T-cells collected 10 d after SIRS/sepsis to a panel of TCR and co-receptor stimuli applied in vivo or ex vivo in multiple ways. This evidence concerns the gene CD8A and systemic inflammatory response syndrome.