CD8A and hepatocellular carcinoma: Pro-inflammatory cytokines induced by toll-like receptor (TLR) ligand and Th1 response index, such as IFN-α/β, and IFN-γ, could activate M1 macrophages to differentiate into M2 macrophages (Oura et al., 2021), which enhances the recruitment and growth of Tregs, resulting in an aggressive phenotype, poor OS, and rapid recurrence (Dong et al., 2016), by downregulating CD8+ T cells, DCs, and NK cells HCC (Langhans et al., 2019).