急性病毒感染常形成有效的抗病毒免疫应答，初始T细胞经历克隆扩增，产生大量的抗原特异性T细胞。这些T细胞有的分化成效应T细胞，分泌细胞因子，在快速清除病毒后绝大多数死亡;存活的T细胞分化为能长期提供保护性免疫的记忆T细胞，当再次遇到同源抗原，能形成有效的抗病毒免疫应答。相比之下，慢性病毒感染导致T细胞的功能逐渐减弱，从而使对病毒感染的控制能力大大降低。持续抗原刺激可能导致T细胞逐步失去效应功能和增殖能力而耗竭，最终影响寄主的抗病毒保护能力。本文就T细胞耗竭特性及保持和促进这种耗竭状态的机制，特别是对在慢性人类免疫缺陷病毒感染中的研究进展进行了综述。

Acute viral infection could form effective antiviral immune response. Naive T cells undergo clonal expansion and give rise to abundant antigen-specific T cells. Some of these T cells differentiate into effector T cells, secrete cytokines and clear the virus. After that, a majority of the effector T cell population dies. Once re-exposure to the antigen , the surviving T cells differentiate into memory T cells and form effective antiviral immunity response. In contrast, chronic viral infections result in T cell function impairment gradually , characterized by losing effector functions and replication potential , and losing the control of the viral infection. In this paper, the characteristics of T cell exhaustion , the advance in maintaining and promoting the exhausted state , especially the advance in chronic human immunodeficiency virus infection are reviewed.