Figure 6
From: Negative Feedback Regulation of HIV-1 by Gene Editing Strategy
Schematic representation of negative feedback regulation of HIV-1 by CRISPR/Cas9.
At the early stage of viral replication, basal transcription of the viral genome ➀ results in the production of Tat protein ➁. The association of Tat with the TAR stem loop structure within the leader of the viral transcript at the budge ➂ leads to the recruitment of several cellular regulatory proteins leading to the induction of viral transcription (solid thick arrow). At the early stage, Tat also stimulates the minimum viral promoter (depicted as ltr), which drives transcription of Cas9 gene ➃. The newly synthesized Cas9 upon association with the various HIV-1 specific gRNAs, in turn, cleaves the viral genome and permanently inactivates LTR activity by excising a large segment of viral DNA, hence shutting down HIV-1 gene expression and replication.
