Technique using gene editing shows potential as a cure for HIV

Scientists at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago, USA, are using new discoveries in CRISPR gene editing technology to develop biology that can produce more effective treatments and new therapeutic approaches to disease. HIVor human immunodeficiency virus, the cause of Aidentities.

Study co-author Judd Hultquist says that while current drug treatments are effective at suppressing viral replication and spread, “they are not curative, so individuals living with HIV should follow a strict treatment regimen.”

Because such healthcare is virtually inaccessible to most of those infected, research teams have been searching for new treatments and even a cure for HIV for more than 40 years. However, no one has yet figured out how. one-tenth of a thousandth of this millimeter virus – with just 12 proteins and a genome – can take over body cells and multiply in the body.

How scientists used CRISPR to “knock out” genes

Assuming HIV depends on the host’s molecular machinery to replicate, the new study published earlier this month in the journal Nature CommunicationThe researchers used a CRISPR gene-editing approach to identify human genes important for HIV infection in the blood.

In this way, HIV’s main target – T cells – was isolated from donated human blood, and hundreds of genes were eliminated using a technique called CRISPR-Cas9, a technique that works like scissors to edit the genome.

These “knockout” cells were then infected with HIV and analyzed. Those who lost the gene important for viral replication resulted in a decrease in infection, and those who lost the antiviral factor had an increase in infection.

The team then validated the identified factors by selectively excluding them in new donors.

ARTICLE Nature Communications: DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-29346-w.