Figure 1. Virus against host. IFN induction, signaling and action
pathway (left) and viral gene products from different virus
families that have been described to inhibit IRF-3 (right).
Originally discovered by the British virologist Alick Isaacks and the Swiss researcher Jean Lindenmann (Picture, above), at the National Institute for Medical Research in London, 1957, Interferon (IFN) plays an important key role in the host antiviral innate immune response (Figure 1, The IFN pathway). For that reason, viruses have developed a plethora of strategies to disrupt the IFN mediated antiviral defense of the host, and viral gene products responsible for these disruptions are often major virulence determinants (Figure 1, Virus IFN-antagonists).
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