The Nature’s Clever Trick for Making Cyclic Dinucleotide

Ever since their initial discovery few years ago, cyclic dinucleotides (cDNs), their biosynthesis, and their biological function have been in focus of intense research efforts. In this issue, Kato et al. (2015) present strong evidence that the key enzyme in cDN biosynthesis, DncV, is poised on a tipping point such that, given a nudge, the enzyme, can link the nucleotides into a distinct cyclic loop, leading to a specific innate immune response.