IFNA1 and cytomegalovirus infection: Since during HCMV infection, the immediate-early protein IE1 functions as inhibitor of interferon (IFN) signaling, we hypothesized that the drastic enlargement of PML-NBs after infection with IE1-deficient HCMV results from IFN-mediated upregulation of PML-NB proteins (Paulus et al., 2006).