IFNA1 and infection: One possibility is that mitophagy modulates the host response to infection by limiting the release of mitochondrial DNA and reactive oxygen species (ROS), which would otherwise trigger IFNA/IFNα and IFNB/IFNβ (type I IFNs; IFN-I) or inflammatory programmed cell death pathways that might be maladaptive during infection [74,75].