Peptide:MHC (pMHC) tetramer staining revealed a significant expansion of T cells specific for the acute, non-inflationary immunodominant epitope M45 (p = 0.0004), with smaller, but also highly significant expansion of CD8 T cells specific for inflationary epitopes m38 (p = 0.0004) and m139 (p = 0.0004) ( Fig 2E ).
Since the CD45- fraction showed a trend towards a higher mCMV genome burden ( S7B Fig ), we focused on these cells in subsequent kinetic analysis. mCMV genomes persisted in the adipose CD45- tissue at comparable levels from 90 to approximately 300+ days post infection, suggesting a lifelong presence of the latent and/or reactivating virus in the adipose tissue of infected animals ( S7C Fig ).