An epigenetic ‘extreme makeover’: the methylation of flaviviral RNA (and beyond)

Beyond their high clinical relevance worldwide, flaviviruses (comprising dengue and Zika viruses) are of particular interest to understand the spatiotemporal control of RNA metabolism. Indeed, their positive single-stranded viral RNA genome (vRNA) undergoes in the cytoplasm replication, translation and encapsidation, three steps of the flavivirus life cycle that are coordinated through a fine-tuned equilibrium. Over the last years, RNA methylation has emerged as a powerful mechanism to regulate messenger RNA metabolism at the posttranscriptional level. Not surprisingly, flaviviruses exploit RNA epigenetic strategies to control crucial steps of their replication cycle as well as to evade sen…