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International Journal of HIV and AIDS research
International Conference on
&
Sexually Transmitted Diseases, AIDS and Parasitic Infections
Parasitology, Infectious Diseases, STDs and STIs
September 21-22, 2017 San Antonio, TX, USA
Eradication of HIV-1 by genome editing
Niklas Beschorner 1,2, Ilona Hauber1, Frank Buchholz3 and Joachim Hauber1, 2
1Heinrich Pette Institute, Germany
2German Center for Infection Research (DZIF), Germany
3TU Dresden, Germany
Current combination antiretroviral therapies (cART) efficiently suppress HIV1 reproduction in infected
humans. However, cART does not eradicate HIV-1 from the body, necessitating lifelong medication.
Therefore, intervention at additional critical steps of the virus life cycle might be indispensable to ultimately
achieve an HIV cure. Clearly, the most direct approach to eradicating HIV-1 is the physical removal of the
integrated provirus from infected cells. The recent development of technologies for genome editing may possibly
soon allow therapeutic targeting of HIV proviral genomes. Designer-nucleases (e.g. CRISPR/Cas9) or engineered
recombinases (e.g. tyrosine-type site-specific recombinases) have been shown to efficiently inhibit HIV-1 in
tissue culture or in animal models (e.g. humanized mice). However, detailed investigation of these different
antiviral genome editing approaches also revealed various undesired effects, in particular the problem of frequent
and accelerated viral escape. In this work we have briefly discuss the pros and cons of current antiviral genome
editing approaches and present experimental data in inactivation/excision of HIV proviral DNA in various model
systems, including primary HIV patient-derived CD4+ T lymphocytes.
Biography
Niklas Beschorner has studied Biotechnology at University of Applied Science OOW in Emden. He finished his PhD at the University of Hamburg in the group
of Professor Hauber at the Heinrich Pette Institute – Leibniz Institute for Experimental Virology, where he is currently perusing his Post-doctoral studies.