Current retroviral therapies for HIV are based on attenuating the virus; however, residual latent forms can cause reactivation, and low-level viral protein production is associated with multiple co-morbidities. Using CRISPR–Cas9 (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat–CRISPR-associated 9) genome editing technology, Hu et al. were able to completely remove HIV from the genomes of multiple cell lines. The production of required tools for this method is rapid, which suggests that personalized therapies for the treatment of HIV are feasible.
References
Hu, W. et al. RNA-directed gene editing specifically eradicates latent and prevents new HIV-1 infection. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1405186111 (2014)
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Lokody, I. Cutting out HIV. Nat Rev Genet 15, 575 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrg3810
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrg3810
