A transgenic mouse model genetically tags all activated CD8 T cells.

Identifying and characterizing Ag-specific CD8+ T cells are central to the study of immunological memory. Although powerful strategies such as MHC tetramers and peptide-induced cytokine production assays exist for identifying Ag-specific CD8+ T cells, alternate strategies that are not dependent upon a priori knowledge of the immunodominant and subdominant antigenic epitopes, as well as the MHC background of the animal are of obvious utility. In this study, we present a transgenic mouse model that uses Cre-loxP recombination to permanently mark all activated CD8+ T cells with beta-galactosidase. We used the lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus infection model to track the dynamics of the antiviral CD8+ T cell responses. We show that in this transgenic mouse model system, all of the antiviral effector and memory CD8+ T cells are contained within the beta-gal-marked CD8+ T cell population.