We speculated that the PDCD1/PD-L pathway might be exploited by CLL to evade a T cell-mediated cytotoxic attack and hence chose to utilize our murine tumour transplantation model to examine whether blocking the PDCD1/PD-L pathway by recombinant PDCD1 (rPDCD1) or anti-CD274 F(ab) fragments in vivo would lead to tumour lysis. This evidence concerns the gene PDCD1 and neoplasm.