The tumor microenvironment (TME) presents a metabolic assault on CD8+ TILs including pH imbalance dysregulating metabolites, amino acid and glucose deprivation (Gajewski et al., 2013), and hypoxia (Petrova et al., 2018), all of which severely undermine the antitumor capability of effector TILs. Here, CD8A is linked to neoplasm.