CD8A and neoplasm: Recent studies observed that the expression of TIM-3 and PD-1 was up-regulated on circulating tumor-specific and tumor-infiltrating CD8+ T cells from patients and mice bearing advanced malignancies respectively, which correlated with the severely exhausted phenotype defined by failure to proliferate and produce effector cytokines, and combined blockade of both TIM-3 and PD-1 pathway reversed tumor-induced T-cell dysfunction and effectively suppressed the experimental tumor growth.