IRF3 and infection: On further probing, the interferon regulatory factors (IRFs) −3 and −7, major transcription factors involved in generating type 1 interferon responses upon HSV-1 infection, we observed that while IRF3 protein levels showed minor changes among different MOIs, IRF7 protein levels were found to increase at later times post infection and were the highest at MOI 0.01 (Fig. 3b,c).