CD8A and Chagas disease: Additionally, a reduction of the TEM subset in favor of an augmented terminal effector (TTE) subset within circulating CD8+ T cells has been demonstrated to occur in cardiac Chagas disease patients, which suggests that CTL-mediated protection against cardiac progression depends on the existence of an elevated number of competent CD8+ memory T cells, i.e., in non-terminal states of differentiation (144, 153).