IFNG and infection: Roughly speaking, in studies exploring the role of host cell autophagy in resistance to T. gondii infection, most researchers found or considered IFN-γ as the key inducer of immune response in the early stage of infection, such that T. gondii-induced autophagy occurs only in the presence of IFN-γ stimulation and targets the parasite PV whether or not the lysosomes are involved (Deretic, 2011; Selleck et al., 2013; Ohshima et al., 2014; Park et al., 2016; Latré et al., 2017).