KLRK1 and head and neck squamous cell carcinoma: Indeed, we observed significant correlations between time-dependent high sMICA and TGF-β1 secretion levels and increased HNSCC cell growth of our tumor clusters or spheroids, which also resulted in disrupted NKG2D-mediated immunosurveillance of blocked patient NK cells as shown previously in our HNSCC patient study (22).