Certainly, the sole infection with HPV could explain, in part, the frequent expansion of CD4+NKG2D+ T cells seen in the cancer patients; however, we did not test for the presence of the virus (unlike our study with CIN-1 patients), since it is well known that virtually all cervical carcinoma patients (99.7 %) have shown to be HPV-DNA carriers [38]. Here, KLRK1 is linked to infection.