We speculated that if there is a link between persistent Q fever and rare cases of NHL, one of the first steps towards NHL progression might be the overexpression of E-cad on monocytes and the decrease in E-cad surface expression on the E-cad+CD20+ B-cells subpopulation of PBMCs (less than 1% of the B cells) from C. burnetii-infected patients [27]. Here, CDH1 is linked to non-Hodgkin lymphoma.