IMPORTANCEArenaviruses are important emerging human pathogens that are maintained in their rodent hosts by persistent infection. Persistent virus is able to subvert the cellular interferon response, a powerful branch of the innate antiviral defense. Here, we investigated the ability of the prototypic arenavirus lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV) to interfere with the induction of programmed cell death, or apoptosis, in response to superinfection with cytopathic RNA viruses. Upon viral challenge, persistent LCMV efficiently blocked induction of interferons, whereas virus-induced apoptosis remained fully active in LCMV-infected cells. Our studies reveal that the persistent virus is able to reshape innate apoptotic signaling in order to prevent interferon production while maintaining programmed cell death as a strategy for innate defense. The differential effect of persistent virus on the interferon response versus its effect on apoptosis appears as a subtle strategy to guarantee sufficiently high viral loads for efficient transmission while maintaining apoptosis as a mechanism of defense.T he arenaviruses are a large family of emerging viruses that includes several causative agents of severe viral hemorrhagic fevers with high mortality in humans (1, 2). Moreover, the prototypic arenavirus lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV) provides a powerful experimental system for the discovery of fundamental concepts of virus-host interaction and viral immunobiology applicable to other pathogens (3, 4). Arenaviruses are enveloped negative-strand RNA viruses whose nonlytic life cycle is restricted to the cytoplasm (1). The viral genome is comprised of two RNA segments that code for two proteins each, using an ambisense coding strategy. The small (S) RNA segment encodes the envelope glycoprotein precursor (GPC) and the nucleoprotein (NP), and the L segment encodes the matrix protein (Z) and the viral polymerase (L).In their natural reservoir hosts, arenaviruses are maintained by persistent infection via vertical transmission from infected mothers to offspring in utero (1). Infection with LCMV of most mouse strains within 24 h of birth, prior to negative selection of T cell and B cell repertoires, results in tolerance and the establishment of a largely asymptomatic carrier state (3). Despite extensive viral replication and high viral loads throughout organs and tissues (5), LCMV carrier mice show only a modest type I interferon (IFN-I) response (6), suggesting that arenaviruses evade or actively suppress, or both, innate immunity (7). Major pathogen recognition receptors (PRRs) implicated in innate detection of arenaviruses in many cell types are the cytosolic RNA helicases (RLHs) retinoic