Abstract
Understanding the dynamic relationship between viral pathogens and cellular host factors is critical to furthering our knowledge of viral replication, disease mechanisms and development of anti-viral therapeutics. CRISPR genome editing technology has enhanced this understanding, by allowing identification of pro-viral and anti-viral cellular host factors for a wide range of viruses, most recently the cause of the COVID-19 pandemic, SARS-CoV-2. This review will discuss how CRISPR knockout and CRISPR activation genome-wide screening methods are a robust tool to investigate the viral life cycle and how other class 2 CRISPR systems are being repurposed for diagnostics.
Highlights
Viruses are dependent on the cellular environment for their life cycles and the dynamic relationship between a virus and its host is ever evolving in the hope to maximise viral fitness and dissemination to the host
To identify host proteins that are co-opted by viruses throughout their life cycles, several platforms have been used such as novel and established compound screening and functional genomics via technologies such as small interfering RNAs and short hairpin RNA that reduce gene expression and mediate the viral replication capacity in response [12,13,14,15]
Can induce a complete sustained reduction in target gene expression, this has expanded the potential to identify novel host factors that are critical for viral replication that may have been otherwise gone undetected in small interfering RNAs (siRNA) screening platforms
Summary
Viruses are dependent on the cellular environment for their life cycles and the dynamic relationship between a virus and its host is ever evolving in the hope to maximise viral fitness and dissemination to the host. To identify host proteins that are co-opted by viruses throughout their life cycles, several platforms have been used such as novel and established compound screening and functional genomics via technologies such as small interfering RNAs (siRNA) and short hairpin RNA (shRNA) that reduce gene expression and mediate the viral replication capacity in response [12,13,14,15]. It was the adaptation of CRISPR-Cas technology to in vitro and in vivo models that allowed for an efficient method to induce complete knockout of gene expression. This review will focus on how the various CRISPR systems have been used to identify novel interactions and how future advancements could be used as therapeutics and diagnostic tools
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