Nonetheless, active corneal HSV-1 infection was necessary to provoke corneal sensation loss, as TCRα-/- mice reconstituted with CD4+ T cells harvested from HSV-infected WT mice did not elicit auto/allo-antigen-associated sensation loss within two weeks of corneal scratch injury (i.e. mock infection) (Figure 3—figure supplement 3). This evidence concerns the gene CD4 and infection.