In the present study, the expression levels of CCL5, CXCR6 and CD3E exhibited a high correlation with the infiltration levels of CD8+ T cells (Fig. 5a, d), and the expression levels in HCC samples were lower than those that in adjacent non-tumor samples (Fig. 7 and Fig. 8). Here, CXCR6 is linked to hepatocellular carcinoma.