MICA and acute myeloid leukemia: However, mechanisms of NK-cell evasion and escape by AML blasts have been documented and include an altered expression of NK-cell ligands caused by epigenetic changes, such as incorrect hypermethylation of genes encoding ligands for the activating receptor NKG2D (NKG2DL), namely MICA, ULBP1, ULBP2, and ULBP3 genes [37].