IRF2 and infection: By focusing on transcription factors with putative relevance to the polarization of monocytes towards classically activated M1 or alternatively activated M2 macrophages, we found that during infection with L. monocytogenes, the activation and development of proinflammatory monocytes is characterized by factors, such as Irf1, Irf2, Ifi204, Batf2, Mndal, and Irf7 [24,25,26,27,28] (Figure 3A).