Engineering hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells to generate red blood cells as viral traps against HIV-1

Because of this, use of the CD4 receptor as a viral trap (a decoy receptor used to prevent infection of target cells) is a promising strategy for the treatment of HIV-1. One challenge in using CD4 viral traps is maintaining enough of the decoy receptor in circulation to remain effective.

Here we present a strategy to produce cell-based CD4 viral traps by engineering hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs) to express the CD4 receptor in red blood cell (RBC) progeny. This takes advantage of the ability of the HSPC to repopulate the blood system for a lifetime, while leveraging the fact that RBCs greatly outnumber any cell targeted for infection. CRISPR/Cas9-engineered HSPCs efficiently express CD4 on their cell surface after differentiation to the RBC lineage in vitro.