At 6 weeks post-oral infection with T. gondii oocysts, transcription analysis in MLNs, retropharyngeal lymph node and spleen, showed significant increase of IFN-γ transcripts both in spleen and retropharyngeal lymph node and of the T-cell surface marker CD8α, the natural killer (NK) cell marker CXCR3 (C-X-C Motif Chemokine Receptor 3), and the adaptor protein MyD88 in the retropharyngeal lymph node (Bartley et al., 2019). Here, CD8A is linked to infection.