As a co-transcriptional gene expression regulation process, pre-mRNA polyadenylation is a key co-transcriptional processing step for mRNA maturation. Polyadenylation affects the fate of mRNA by modulating its stability, translation efficiency, and nuclear-to-cytoplasmic translocation. Alternative polyadenylation (APA) is an important regulatory mechanism in the processing of pre-mRNA 3′ ends during transcription, enhancing diversity and plasticity of the transcriptome. A significant amounts of studies have shown that the process of polyadenylation and APA plays an important role in plant growth, development, and their interactions with viruses. In this review, we examined recent progress in the role of polyadenylation and APA in regulating gene expression pathways in response to internal developmental cues as well as external challenges by viruses. APA is also associated with various pathologies, including viral infection, propagation, and release. Viral mRNAs utilize polyadenylation to mimic host transcripts, enhancing their stability and translation efficiency while evading immune recognition. Hosts counteract this through RNA surveillance mechanisms that target polyadenylated viral RNAs for degradation. The infection process also dynamically regulates host APA, reprogramming immune-related gene expression to mediate either antiviral defense or promotion of viral infection. The fact that APA participates in and regulates the intricate relationship during viral–host interaction warrants further research. Future perspectives are provided to aid in the study of the molecular mechanism of APA in development and viral–host interactions.
Ouyang et al. (2026) studied this question.