Although STAT1 is not essential to eventual resolution of the infection (Birkner et al., 2008), it plays an important role in innate immune protection and provides evidence of an unexplained and potentially novel STAT1-dependent homeostatic mechanism that dampens host inflammatory and immune organ/tissue damage with A. phagocytophilum infection (Choi et al., 2014). The gene discussed is STAT1; the disease is infection.