Furthermore, no virus was detectable in leaves and stems, and plants appeared ‘healthy’ in the HCPro-OX line at 40 dpi (Fig. 5C, D), This implied that although the infected HCPro-OX plants showed more serious disease symptoms due to the high level of HCPro inhibiting the activity of CATs at the early stage of virus infection, the RNA silencing pathway based on dsRNA of HCPro played an antiviral role at the late stage of infection, resulting in eventual plant ‘recovery’. Here, PIMREG is linked to viral infectious disease.