A synthetic genomics-based African swine fever virus engineering platform
African swine fever (ASF) is a deadly viral disease in domestic pigs that has a large global economic impact for the swine industry. It is present in Africa, Europe, Asia, and in the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. There are no effective treatments or broadly licensed vaccines to prevent disease. Efforts to counteract ASF have been hampered because of the lack of convenient tools to engineer its etiological agent, ASF virus (ASFV), largely due to its large noninfectious genome. Here, we report the use of synthetic genomics methodology to develop a reverse genetics system for ASFV using a CRISPR-Cas9-inhibited self-helper virus to reconstitute live recombinant ASFV from synthetic genomes to rapidly generate a variety of combinatorial mutants of ASFV. The method will substantially facilitate the development of therapeutics or subunit and live-attenuated vaccines for ASF. This synthetic genomics-based approach has wide-ranging impact because it can be applied to rapidly develop reverse genetics tools for emerging viruses with noninfectious genomes.
Authors
- Sanjay Vashee (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6374-438X)
- Tonny Kabuuka (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5363-6254)
- Norberto González-Juarbe (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2481-698X)
- Alexandra Hübner (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2217-9836)
- Lucilla Steinaa (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3691-3971)
- Nacyra Assad-Garcia (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5270-2272)
- Walter Fuchs (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7670-451X)
- Vishvanath Nene (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7066-4169)
- Dirk W. Höper (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8408-2274)
- Yong Xue (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9091-3772)
- Lauren M. Oldfield (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0796-2192)
- Hussein M. Abkallo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5594-4418)
- Nadia Fedorova
- Katrin Pannhorst (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9753-2593)
Institutions
- J. Craig Venter Institute (US)
- Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut (DE)
- National Agricultural Research Organisation (UG)
- International Livestock Research Institute (KE)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Science Advances
- Published
- 2025-03-26
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adu7670
- Citations
- 7
- Primary Topic
- Animal Disease Management and Epidemiology
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 13.32