MICA and cancer: We found that the only significantly down-regulated genes within this large region were HLA-A and B genes as well as MHC class I polypeptide–related sequence A (MICA), an NKG2D ligand belonging to the family of stress induced ligands that mediates self-recognition leading to cytotoxicity, and which is frequently down-regulated in cancer through largely unknown mechanisms (Obiedat et al, 2019) (Fig 1B).