CD8A and infection: Comparison of early- and late-stages of chronic HCV and HBV infections by transcriptomic analyses of virus-specific CD8 cells [26,64,65,89] revealed completely divergent profiles of early and late exhausted CD8 T cells: upregulated genes were highly enriched in early exhausted cells derived from the acute phase of HCV infection, while a massive gene downregulation was prevalent in late exhausted cells of the established chronic phase of both infections [64,65].