We show that: (i) DCQ predictions fit well with the current knowledge of the immune cell dynamics during acute and chronic LCMV-infections, (ii) the combination of WGCNA and DCQ allows to better characterize the dynamic cell events occurring in complex tissues, and (iii) during the evolution toward the chronic infection state, the chemokine XCL1 is produced by CD8+ T cells that express markers of early effector cells. Here, CD8A is linked to infection.