In addition, seasonally induced influenza virus-specific CD8+ T cells can cross-react with novel potentially pandemic avian influenza viruses (Kreijtz et al., 2008; Lee et al., 2008; van de Sandt et al., 2014) and facilitate more rapid recovery in patients following infection with low pathogenic H7N9 avian influenza virus (Wang et al., 2015). Here, CD8A is linked to infection.