CD8A and cancer: This cycle is arbitrarily divided into seven steps (Figure 1): cancer cells release antigens (Step 1); antigens are captured by dendritic cells (DCs) (Step 2); DCs with captured antigens migrate to lymph node and prime with T cells to activate tumor-specific cytolytic CD8+ T cells (Step 3); the cytolytic T cells migrate from lymph node into blood vessels (Step 4); immune cells infiltrate into tumor stroma (Step 5); the cytolytic T cells recognize tumor cells (Step 6); T cells kill cancer cells (Step 7) (17, 18).