Early T cell depletion occurs prior to the development of an effective immune response to infections.Both antigen-specific and non-specific T cells are induced to express early activation markers soon after microbial infections.This is followed by massive depletion of non-specific T cells and extensive proliferation of antigen-specific T cells.Proliferating antigen-specific cells exhibit a broad spectrum of late activation markers while non-specific cells exhibit no sign of further activation before succumbing to apoptosis.These results have crucial implications for the understanding of early events in the development of a robust T cell response.