CRISPR/CAS9 AS ANEW METHOD IN THE FIGHT AGAINST HIV - PERSPECTIVES AND HISTORY OF DEVELOPMENT

An Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) remains a serious public health problem. The main obstacle to HIV eradication is the latent virus reservoir, which persists despite long-lasting, highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART). Therapy may reduce viral load to an undetectable level, but has limitations such as problems with adherence of patients to long-term therapy, short- and long-term side effects, drug interactions, high costs and the possibility of drug resistance. In addition, the available drugs do not allow complete cure from HIV infection, and withdrawal leads to a rapid increase of viral load. This article presents the results of preliminary studies on the use of the CRISPR/Cas9 system to eliminate HIV DNA from the genome of infected cells. The great advantage of the CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing tool is the ease of designing the RNA guide that directs Cas9 to the designated DNA locus and the high specificity and effectiveness of this tool. It is possible that CRISPR/Cas9 can be combined with HAART to remove the virus from latently infected cells, which can not be achieved by using only HAART. This could be the last chance to cure people who have failed classical antiretroviral therapy. However, CRISPR/Cas9 has also some limitations. Therefore, when thinking about improving the method, we should keep in mind the testing of various vectors and targets in the HIV genome and the chemical testing of inductive Cas9 systems that could improve the safety profile.