Engineering CRISPR/Cas13 System against RNA Viruses: From Diagnostics to Therapeutics

Over the past decades, RNA viruses have been threatened people’s health and led to global health emergencies. Significant progress has been made in diagnostic methods and antiviral therapeutics for combating RNA viruses. ELISA and RT-qPCR are reliable methods to detect RNA viruses, but they suffer from time-consuming procedures and limited sensitivities. Vaccines are effective to prevent virus infection and drugs are useful for antiviral treatment, while both need a relatively long research and development cycle. In recent years, CRISPR-based gene editing and modifying tools have been expanded rapidly. In particular, the CRISPR-Cas13 system stands out from the CRISPR-Cas family due to its accurate RNA-targeting ability, which makes it a promising tool for RNA virus diagnosis and therapy. Here, we review the current applications of the CRISPR-Cas13 system against RNA viruses, from diagnostics to therapeutics, and use some medically important RNA viruses such as SARS-CoV-2, dengue virus, and HIV-1 as examples to demonstrate the great potential of the CRISPR-Cas13 system.