Gene drive in Cytomegalovirus

Current engineered gene drive strategies rely on sexual reproduction and it was therefore thought that gene drives could not be engineered in asexual organisms such as bacteria and viruses. Here however, we designed a novel gene drive system that allows for the spread of an engineered trait in populations of DNA viruses, and in particular, herpesviruses. We describe the successful transmission of a gene drive sequence between distinct strains of human Cytomegalovirus (Human Herpesvirus 5), and show that gene drive viruses can efficiently target and replace wildtype populations in cell culture experiments. Our results indicated that viral gene drive can be used to block or drastically circumvent viral infection, which represents a novel therapeutic strategy against herpesviruses.

当前的工程化基因驱动（gene drive）策略均依赖有性生殖，因此学界曾认为无法在细菌、病毒等无性生殖生物中构建基因驱动系统。但本研究设计了一种新型基因驱动系统，可实现工程化性状在DNA病毒种群，特别是疱疹病毒种群中的传播。本研究报道了基因驱动序列在不同株系的人巨细胞病毒（Human Herpesvirus 5）之间的成功传递，并证实经过基因驱动改造的病毒可在细胞培养实验中高效靶向并替换野生型病毒种群。研究结果表明，病毒基因驱动可用于阻断或大幅规避病毒感染，这代表了一种针对疱疹病毒的新型治疗策略。