Scientists use CRISPR to discover Zika and dengue weaknesses

Scientists from Washington have discovered human proteins that Zika virus needs for replication by performing the first screen using gene editing tool CRISPR/Cas9, an advance that may help fight Zika, dengue and other emerging viral infections.

Using the RNAi and CRISPR/Cas9 screening technologies they had developed for dengue and influenza, researchers in the Brass lab began by knocking out or depleting each protein in the human genome one at a time, then seeing how Zika or dengue virus grew when that human protein was gone.

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