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CRISPR Eliminates HIV In Live Animals (genengnews.com)
Researchers from the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University and the University of Pittsburgh show that HIV-1 infections can be eliminated from the genomes of living animals. Findings from the study have been published in the journal Molecular Therapy. Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News reports: This is the first study to demonstrate that HIV-1 replication can be completely shut down and the virus eliminated from infected cells in animals with a powerful gene-editing technology known as CRISPR/Cas9. The new work builds on a previous proof-of-concept study that the team published in 2016, in which they used transgenic rat and mouse models with HIV-1 DNA incorporated into the genome of every tissue of the animals' bodies. They demonstrated that their strategy could delete the targeted fragments of HIV-1 from the genome in most tissues in the experimental animals. In this new study, the LKSOM team genetically inactivated HIV-1 in transgenic mice, reducing the RNA expression of viral genes by roughly 60% to 95% -- confirming their earlier findings. They then tested their system in mice acutely infected with EcoHIV, the mouse equivalent of human HIV-1. In the third animal model, a latent HIV-1 infection was recapitulated in humanized mice engrafted with human immune cells, including T cells, followed by HIV-1 infection. "These animals carry latent HIV in the genomes of human T cells, where the virus can escape detection," Dr. Hu explained. Amazingly, after a single treatment with CRISPR/Cas9, viral fragments were successfully excised from latently infected human cells embedded in mouse tissues and organs.
It's also how you get a cure for AIDS. Stop making zombie jokes, this could be the end of the epidemic.
Not just that, but this sounds like an approach you could adapt to any virus.
Well, given how/why CRISPR/cas9 evolved in prokaryote in the first place.
Prokaryotes ended up with this systems because it helps them remove foreign DNA (phages, plasmids).
Curing HIV is about removing its foreign DNA from the infected white blood cells.
So CRISPR could be applied to curing viruses such as VIH.
Hey, what a surprise !
Yes, it could be used to eliminate tons of currently hard to cure viruses.
(Note: I'm not belittling the accomplishment of the researcher who developed this cure candidate.
There's surely a lot of work done to addapt to this use.
I'm just saying is that these kind of application is what bacteria evolved CRIPR for in the nature,
so it's not surprising that we could apply it for a similar task in eukaryote regarding viruses.
It's the "weirdly simple gene editor" use that is unexpected)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
In a few years, no-one's going to give a crap about whether these treatments are approved by some government, when they can download a file from the Internet that specifies the genetic changes and send it to their Home DNA Modification Kit.
Funny. Except that you can buy CRISPR kits specifically designed for home experiments. Right now. For $100.