Systemic IFNα administration restored the antitumor effect of oral and topical IMQ in mice depleted of pDCs, whereas IFNα treatment alone was not sufficient to replace IMQ in pDC-depleted melanoma-bearing mice (Fig. 2e and Extended Data Fig. 2b), suggesting that topical IMQ treatment was necessary in addition to systemic IFNα. This evidence concerns the gene IFNA2 and melanoma.