While the activation of Müller glia is necessary to control infections and recruitment of resident microglia in the retina, the pro-inflammatory stimuli, derived from degenerating rods, induce the upregulation of the chemokine CX3CL1 (C-X3-C motif chemokine ligand 1) and maintain a chronic activation of microglia, thus altering the finely tuned inflammatory cascade (Bringmann et al., 2006; Schmalen et al., 2021; Chen et al., 2022). The gene discussed is CX3CL1; the disease is infection.