Hijack to escape:a geminivirus seizes a host imprinted E3 ligase to escape epigenetic repression

Geminivirus infection triggers both transcriptional and posttranscriptional RNA silencing(RNA interference,RNAi)antiviral mechanisms.Much is known about the geminivirus-encoded viral suppressors of RNA silencing(VSRs)interfering with host RNAi machineries.However,how transcription of these VSRs escapes from epigenetic silencing remains unknown.Chen et al.(2020)provide compelling evidence for the epigenetic activation of VSRs via geminivirus-induced VIM5,a plant imprinted E3 ligase gene,leading to post-translational degradation of host DNA methyltransferases(Chen et al.,2020).