CD8A and hepatocellular carcinoma: To first investigate whether non–tumor-derived PD-L1 plays a role in suppressing intratumor CD8+ T cell function and tumor growth in HCC, we generated mouse hepatoma Hepa1-6 cells with Pdl1 deletion (referred to as Pdl1-KO) using CRISPR/Cas9-mediated gene knockout (24).