INTRODUCTION In the arms race between pathogen and host, infecting microbes often
escape extracellular defense mechanisms to exploit the nutrient-rich intracellular
environment as a replicative niche. In humans, this is countered by the interferon-γ (IFN-γ)
response, which confers widespread pathogen resistance in most nucleated cells through
the transcriptional induction of hundreds of interferon-stimulated genes (ISGs) encoding
putative antimicrobial restriction factors. Remarkably, despite the importance of IFN-γ …