To evaluate whether this cell loss was due to lytic infection or to soluble factors like type I IFNs, which have been reported to be strongly induced early after infection 25, we repeated the infection in 129/Sv H2b wild type or 129/Sv‐IFNAR‐1−/− mice and observed that, in IFNAR‐1−/− mice, LDV did neither decrease the number of CD11b+ and CD8α+ cDCs (Fig. 5C and D) nor their ability to function as APC in MLC reactions using FVB (H2q) responder spleen cells (Fig. 5E). This evidence concerns the gene IFNAR1 and infection.