A recent study found that the PI3K–AKT–glycogen synthase kinase 3 (GSK3) pathway is activated by the chemokine fractalkine (CX3CL1)–CX3CR1 axis to upregulate Nrf2 (Subbarayan et al. 2022), thereby protecting microglia proliferation from the deleterious effects of PD (Yang et al. 2022b). The gene discussed is CX3CL1; the disease is Parkinson disease.