**1. Introduction**

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This chapter will focus on the role of innate immunity induction on antiviral responses with an emphasis on nucleic acids as type-I interferon (IFN) inducers and their use as antiviral compounds and vaccine adjuvants. A general and up-to-date view of the different mechanisms operating in the host cell for sensing viral genomes will be given, as well as viral strategies counteracting this response through immune evasion or specifically targeted antagonism. Our own recent data describing the ability to induce IFN and mediate protection against viral infection in vivo of synthetic RNA transcripts enclosing structural domains present in the 5´ and 3´-terminal regions of the foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) genome will be sum‐ marized and discussed in this context. New vaccine formulations including innate immunity inducers are being developed for improvement of current vaccines. The potential of exogenous nucleic acids as modulators of immune response outcomes and vaccine adjuvants will be reviewed and discussed. A schematic summary of the interrelated topics addressed in this chapter is shown in Figure 1. Additionally, a glossary of all the acronyms and abbreviations used in the text and figures is shown in Table 1.
