Taniguchi and coworkers have shown that HMGBs function as universal sentinels for nucleic acid mediated innate immune response [52] . HMGBs operate upstream of cytoplasmic RLRs and endosomal TLRs and they are essential for nucleic acidinduced activation of innate immune response. In our experiments both HMGB1 and HMGB2 were detected in cell culture supernatants of influenza A virus-infected macrophages. These results suggest that HMGBs have an important role in the activation of innate immune response to influenza A virus infection. Our proteomics approach showed also increased secretion of galectin-3 in response to influenza A virus infection. This finding is especially interesting since galectins are known to bind extracellularly carbohydrate structures and the envelope of influenza A virus contains two glycoproteins, hemagglutinin and neuraminidase. Hemagglutinin is required for influenza A virus entry, and it can be speculated that the extracellular galectins restrict viral entry. It is easy to envision that secreted galectins may have also other functions in antiviral response since there is ample evidence about the role of galectins in innate immunity to bacterial and fungal infections [53] . Clearly, future studies are required to characterize the importance of galectins in viral infections.