Verhamme et al. (2025) demonstrated that the UL13 protein kinase of PRV initiates post-translational phosphorylation of FTO, the m6A and m6A.m. erasers. Viral UL13 facilitates FTO-dependent inhibition of ISGs expression. In primary epithelial cells, the reduction of FTO results in an elevated expression of antiviral ISGs (Verhamme et al., 2025), suggesting that FTO inhibitors may show yet-to-be-determined strategies to modulate the antiviral IFN response to regulate viral infection (Verhamme and Favoreel W., 2025). Here, FTO is linked to viral infectious disease.