CD8A and cancer: Ma et al. (2008) demonstrated herb visci’s ability to enhance CD4+ and CD8+ T cell proliferation in colon cancer, and were able to demonstrate increased production of both antigen-specific CD8+ T cells, and cytokine IFN-γ. Lectin’s represent an important focus in cancer research as they are present in many plant species, and may increase both apoptosis and autophagy (Yau et al., 2015).