How Opportunistic Agents Benefit from Viral Infections: The Plasmacytoid Dendritic Cell Connection

Plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDCs) drive antiviral immunity through their rapid production of type I interferon (IFN-I). In this issue, Zuniga et al. (2008) report that both acute and persistent viral infections dramatically decrease pDC numbers and impair their capacity to produce IFN-I, leading to an enhanced susceptibility to opportunistic viruses