The role of glycosylated epitopes, such as the MPT32 peptide identified here, in production of Th1 or Th2 cytokines by HLA-E restricted CD8+ T cells remains to be explored, but these results demonstrate that HLA-E restricted CD8+ T cells have the potential to play a unique and important role in the human immune response to infection with Mtb. Here, CD8A is linked to infection.