SOAT1 and bacterial infectious disease: This study showed that silencing of STAT or JAK, but not Toll-1, TAK1 or TAB1, which are components of the Toll and IMD pathways, resulted in an increase in A. phagocytophilum in infected ticks and that the JAK/STAT pathway controls bacterial infection by regulating the expression of antimicrobial peptides of the 5.3 kD gene family.