MCMV also elicits a robust conventional CD8+ T cell response that is initially broad but that, over time, becomes dominated by the expansion of a few MCMV epitopes as the infection progress into latency, a phenomenon known as memory inflation.61 Considering T cell numbers, it seems likely that QFL T cell protection is most relevant in the early phase of infection, prior to the massive expansion of conventional CD8+ T cells, and perhaps overlapping in time with NK cell responses. Here, CD8A is linked to infection.