It's a good news, bad news scenario for exhausted T cells in chronic infections. Multiple groups of investigators reported in the July 26, 2021, online issue of Nature Immunology that even after a chronic hepatitis C virus infection was cured, T cells that had become dysfunctional during the infection retained epigenetic "scars" that prevented them from becoming fully functional memory T cells.

Researchers led by Emanuel Hanski at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have identified a class of molecules that inhibit endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress and could decrease mortality in mice infected with Streptococcus pyogenes, also known as the group A streptococci.