Bella Ramona, Kaminski Rafal, Mancuso Pietro, Young Won-Bin, Chen Chen, Sariyer Rahsan, Fischer Tracy, Amini Shohreh, Ferrante Pasquale, Jacobson Jeffrey M, Kashanchi Fatah, Khalili Kamel
Center for Neurovirology, Department of Neuroscience, Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University, Philadelphia, PA 19140, USA.
Center for Neurovirology, Department of Neuroscience, Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University, Philadelphia, PA 19140, USA; Department of Biomedical, Surgical and Dental Sciences, University of Milan, Via Pascal 36, Milano 20133, Italy.
Mol Ther Nucleic Acids. 2018 Sep 7;12:275-282. doi: 10.1016/j.omtn.2018.05.021. Epub 2018 Jun 19.
We used NOD/SCID mice, also known as NRG, to assess the ability of lentivirus-mediated intravenous delivery of CRISPR in editing the HIV-1 genome from the circulating PBMC engrafts, some of which homed within several animal solid tissues. Lentivirus-mediated delivery of a multiplex of guide RNAs accompanied by Cas9 endonuclease led to the excision of the targeted region of the viral genome positioned within the HIV-1 LTR from the in-vitro-infected human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) embedded in the spleens of NRG mice. Similarly, the treatment of NRG mice harboring PBMC engrafts derived from HIV-1-positive patients with the therapeutic lentivirus eliminated the presence of the viral DNA fragment in the blood, as well as in the spleen, lung, and liver, of the engrafted animals. Sanger sequence analysis of the viral DNA after treatment with the lentiviral vectors expressing Cas9 and gRNAs verified the editing and removal of the proviral DNA fragment from the viral genome at the predicted sites. This proof-of-concept study, for the first time, demonstrates successful excision of the HIV-1 proviral DNA from patient immune cell engrafts in humanized mice upon treatment with lentivirus-expressing CRISPR and causes a decline in the level of replication-competent virus.
我们使用了NOD/SCID小鼠(也称为NRG小鼠)来评估慢病毒介导的静脉注射CRISPR编辑循环外周血单核细胞(PBMC)植入物中HIV-1基因组的能力,其中一些植入物归巢于多个动物实体组织中。慢病毒介导的多种导向RNA与Cas9核酸酶一起传递,导致在体外感染的人外周血单核细胞(PBMC)中位于HIV-1长末端重复序列(LTR)内的病毒基因组靶向区域从NRG小鼠脾脏中嵌入的细胞中被切除。同样,用治疗性慢病毒处理携带源自HIV-1阳性患者PBMC植入物的NRG小鼠,消除了植入动物血液以及脾脏、肺和肝脏中病毒DNA片段的存在。用表达Cas9和导向RNA的慢病毒载体处理后,对病毒DNA进行桑格序列分析,验证了在预测位点从病毒基因组中编辑和去除前病毒DNA片段。这项概念验证研究首次证明,在用表达CRISPR的慢病毒处理后,人源化小鼠体内患者免疫细胞植入物中的HIV-1前病毒DNA成功切除,并导致有复制能力的病毒水平下降。