Our conclusions are in line with recent clinical reports showing that NKG2D is upregulated on hepatic CD8+T cells in patients with chronic viral hepatitis62 (Prof. M. Maini, personal communication) and that HCV-infected HCC patients display a high density of liver infiltrating CD8+T cells which correlated with a higher tumour recurrence and lower survival63. Here, CD8A is linked to hepatocellular carcinoma.