It was previously described by our group and by others, that caspase-3 and caspase-9 are induced early upon infection, and that expression of anti- and pro-apoptotic genes is tightly regulated throughout the ASFV life cycle (Chacún et al., 1995; Revilla et al., 1997; Brun et al., 1998; Nogal et al., 2001; Afonso et al., 2004; Hernáez et al., 2004). The gene discussed is CASP9; the disease is infection.