Mouse splenic pDCs isolated around 1.5 days after MCMV infection of different mouse strains do not only secrete high levels of IFN-I but also produce significant amounts of IL-12p70, TNF-α, and CCL3, and induce mRNA expression for a number of other cytokines and chemokines including IL-1β, IL-6 and LTα [12, 13, 43] (Figure 1 ). Conversely, however, other cytokines that can be concomitantly detected in the spleens of infected animals seem to be mostly expressed in other specific innate immune cell types, for example IFN-γ in NK cells [13] or IL-15 in cDCs ( Figure 1 ). Like their murine counterparts, human pDCs activated with HCMV or HSV-1 are also induced to produce and secrete many cytokines and chemokines including TNF-α, IL-6, CXCL10 and CCL3 [8, 69] . However, unlike their murine counterparts, human pDCs do not express IL-12 or only at extremely low levels [31, 38] . pDCs can also produce anti-inflammatory cytokines such as IL-10 in response to EBV stimulation [11] .