O ne of the hallmarks of herpes simplex virus (HSV) infection is the ability of the virus to establish latency in neurons of an infected host (1-4). During HSV-1 neuronal latency in mice, rabbits, and humans, the only viral gene that is consistently expressed at high levels is the latency-associated transcript (LAT) (5-8). LAT is important for wild-type (wt) levels of spontaneous and induced reactivation from latency (9-11). Experimental HSV-1 infections in mice and rabbits show that HSV-1 establishes a latent phase in sensory neurons (5,(12)(13)(14)(15). Although spontaneous reactivation occurs in rabbits in a manner similar to that in humans, spontaneous reactivation in mice occurs at extremely low rates (16,17).It has been proposed that trigeminal ganglia (TG)-resident CD8 ؉ T cells play an important role in maintaining latency (decreasing HSV-1 or HSV-2 reactivation) in mouse TG (18-21). Specifically, it was suggested that CD8 ϩ T cells infiltrate the TG at the time of latency establishment, inhibiting HSV-1 reactivation from latency. During latency establishment, a subset of CD8 ϩ T cells remain in direct contact with infected neurons. During HSV-1 reactivation from latency in ex vivo cultures of latently infected TG, it was found that addition of an antagonistic CD8 antibody decreased the time to reactivation, while addition of HSV-1-specific CD8 ؉ T cells increased this phenotype.Consistent with the notion that functional HSV-1-specific CD8 ؉ T cells in the TG decrease HSV-1 reactivation from latency, we found increased CD8 ؉ T cell exhaustion during latency with wild-type (wt; LAT ϩ ) HSV-1 compared to that with LAT Ϫ HSV-1 (17,22,23). In this context, exhaustion is synonymous with loss of function. Since LAT ϩ virus reactivates more rapidly than LAT