Seamless modification of wild-type induced pluripotent stem cells to the natural CCR5Δ32 mutation confers resistance to HIV infection

L Ye, J Wang, AI Beyer, F Teque… - Proceedings of the …, 2014 - National Acad Sciences
L Ye, J Wang, AI Beyer, F Teque, TJ Cradick, Z Qi, JC Chang, G Bao, MO Muench, J Yu…
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2014National Acad Sciences
Individuals homozygous for the CC chemokine receptor type 5 gene with 32-bp deletions
(CCR5Δ32) are resistant to HIV-1 infection. In this study, we generated induced pluripotent
stem cells (iPSCs) homozygous for the naturally occurring CCR5Δ32 mutation through
genome editing of wild-type iPSCs using a combination of transcription activator-like effector
nucleases (TALENs) or RNA-guided clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic
repeats (CRISPR)-Cas9 together with the piggyBac technology. Remarkably, TALENs or …
Individuals homozygous for the C-C chemokine receptor type 5 gene with 32-bp deletions (CCR5Δ32) are resistant to HIV-1 infection. In this study, we generated induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) homozygous for the naturally occurring CCR5Δ32 mutation through genome editing of wild-type iPSCs using a combination of transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs) or RNA-guided clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)-Cas9 together with the piggyBac technology. Remarkably, TALENs or CRISPR-Cas9–mediated double-strand DNA breaks resulted in up to 100% targeting of the colonies on one allele of which biallelic targeting occurred at an average of 14% with TALENs and 33% with CRISPR. Excision of the piggyBac using transposase seamlessly reproduced exactly the naturally occurring CCR5Δ32 mutation without detectable exogenous sequences. We differentiated these modified iPSCs into monocytes/macrophages and demonstrated their resistance to HIV-1 challenge. We propose that this strategy may provide an approach toward a functional cure of HIV-1 infection.
National Acad Sciences