Another study displayed that NSUN2 specifically orchestrated m5C methylation of interferon regulatory factor 3 (IRF3) mRNA and accelerated its degradation, declining the levels of IRF3 and downstream IFN-β, and that knockout or knockdown of NSUN2 increased the production of type I IFN and downstream IFN-stimulated genes during various viral infections in vitro (Wang et al., 2023c). This evidence concerns the gene IRF3 and viral infectious disease.