Joint research by the labs of Drs. Hong Tang and Yang-Xin Fu has shown that T cells of the adaptive immune system suppress overzealous early innate responses to infection (cytokine storm) that usually lead to severe immunopathology and high death rates. They have been able to show, through the depletion of CD4+ and CD8+ T cells in wild-type mice or by adoptive transfer of T lymphocytes into Rag-1 deficient mice (lack of T cells), that T cells are both necessary and sufficient to temper the early innate response. They further demonstrated that viral infection or administration of a synthetic RNA virus genome mimicry compound, poly (I:C), led to cytokine storm in T-cell-deficient mouse NK cells in a tumor necrosis factor (TNF) dependent manner. They also found that, in addition to the conventional inhibitory T cells (Treg cells), close contact of resting non-Treg (CD4+CD25-Foxp3-) or CD8+ T cells with innate cells could also suppress the cytokine surge in an antigen-independent fashion. These findings suggest that early innate immunity requires adaptive immunity to be in check in order to maintain the appropriate immune responses.  These findings may point to a novel mechanism of immunopathology during acute infections and lead to the development of potential anti-inflammation regimes.