Interestingly, it was found that the methyltransferase and the ORF3 protein bind the macro domain competitively, which the authors suggest is a regulatory mechanism as the virus likely needs more methyltransferase activity early in infection, as well as the ORF3 protein, which is a multifunctional phosphoprotein with ion channel activity necessary viral egress later in infection [15,35]. This evidence concerns the gene ASZ1 and infection.