A Systematic Review of Gene Editing Therapy for Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome

Abstract

Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a deadly immunological disease that affects the immune system and becomes more common in recent years, which is brought on by the inflection of human immunodeficiency (HIV). The treatment of AIDS has always been a major challenge for the medical community to overcome because the existing treatment methods are not universal. At present, the scientific community is focusing on gene editing therapy, and the feasible tools are zinc finger nucleases (ZFNs), transcription activator-like nucleases (TALENs), and clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat (CRISPR)/CRISPR-associated protein 9 (Cas9). Since gene editing technology has advanced so quickly, gene editing therapy is now thought to be one of the most promising AIDS treatment. Though these systems are powerful and efficient, there are still several serious challenges that scientists should face. The clinical safety issues have always existed and been controversial, especially after He Jiankui’s case that editing AIDS-resistance human embryos coming to the light. And the legal regulations were strongly criticized due to gaps in the bottom line of scientific research. This review summarizes existing applications of gene editing in AIDS with the safety and ethical issues of clinical application, searching for the relevant solutions to the current challenges.