NT5E and cervical carcinoma: 12). The extracellular catalytic activity of CD73 can be performed by a membrane-bound form of CD73 or a soluble form derived from the glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI)-anchored CD73 by cleavage (Ref. 15). Although the main focus of this work is to explore the role of CD73 in cervical cancer, we must also mention that the ability to metabolize AMP is not an exclusiveness of CD73. Other enzymes, such as tissue-specific alkaline phosphatases and tissue-non-specific alkaline phosphatases (TNAPs), can also hydrolyze AMP to ADO (Figure 1) (Ref. 16).