Also in chronic hepatitis B, subsets of differentially exhausted virus-specific CD8 T cells have been observed [21,22], among which terminally exhausted cells do not represent the majority of the virus-specific population both at peripheral (personal communication) and at intrahepatic/intratumor level in CHB patients with hepatocellular carcinoma [23]. The gene discussed is CD8A; the disease is hepatocellular carcinoma.