Significant progress has been made in the last couple of years on the deciphering of the innate functions of pDCs and their regulation during viral infections in vivo. However, further studies are required to improve our knowledge of the overall role of pDCs in the physiopathology of the infections with herpesviruses as well as other viruses, and to deepen our understanding of how the positive and negative mechanisms which regulate pDC functions integrate in time and space to promote health over disease. To this aim, the generation of novel mouse models specifically devoid of pDCs, or selectively affected in their functions, will be instrumental. In addition, the comparison of the outcome of herpesvirus infections and of the antiviral immune responses between non human primate models naturally differing in their pDC responses to TLR stimulations, such as macaques and sooty mangabeys [138] , would be enlightening.  Herpesviruses can interfere with the induction of, or the responses to, IFN-I to escape immunity.