Recently Schlie et al. (2015) showed that in reaction to influenza infection, Atg5-/- CD8+ T cells had a lowered ability to achieve the peak effector reaction and they were not able to sustain cell viability throughout the effector phase, indicating that effector CD8+ T cells need autophagy to subdue apoptosis and retain survival in reaction to a viral infection (Schlie et al., 2015). The gene discussed is CD8A; the disease is viral infectious disease.