Nature: The deadly virus, once used as a biological weapon in the United States, continues to explode, and CRISPR technology has succeeded in finding an antidote

Venezuela's horse encephalitis virus (VEEV), a mosquito-borne virus that infects all mako animals, including horses, donkeys, zebras and so on.
may suddenly die or have an aggressive central nervous system disease after an infection.
Humans can also be infected with the virus, which enters the body and resides in neurons after a mosquito bite, and a week later begins to show symptoms such as headache, muscle pain, fatigue, vomiting, nausea, diarrhea, sore throat and fever.
the worst cases, the virus can cross the blood-brain barrier, causing encephalitis, which can cause up to a quarter of patients to die, especially those with weakened immune systems, as well as children and the elderly.
the virus was isolated in 1938, and every few years thereafter it jumped from animals to humans through mosquitoes, causing thousands of infections and many deaths.
in Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, and the United States.
with climate change and human expansion, the virus is likely to expand and threaten countries in the Americas, including the United States.
for the virus, humans are still helpless, there is no effective treatment drugs and prevention vaccines.
It is worth noting that during the Cold War, both the United States and the former Soviet Union conducted biological weaponization studies of the Venezuelan human encephalitis virus, as detailed by Dr. Ken Alibek, a former Soviet biological weapons expert who was involved in the study, in his book Biochemical Crisis: The Creepy True Story of the World's Largest Secret Biological Weapons Program.
November 18, 2020, the Michael Diamond team at the University of Washington School of Medicine published a new research paper in the journal Nature entitled: LDLRAD3 is a receptor for Venezuelan equine enitis virus.
the study, using CRISPR genome-wide screening, successfully found and confirmed that the LDLRAD3 protein is a subject of venezuelan horse encephalitis virus (VEEV) entering animal and human cells. the
team further confirmed that the LDLRAD3 (D1)-Fc fusion protein, as a bait, can effectively bind to the Venezuelan horse encephalitis virus (VEEV), prevent viral infection, and through the immune system to remove, to prevent a possible outbreak of Venezuelan horse encephalitis virus (VEEV), providing an effective strategy.
because the Venezuelan horse encephalitis virus (VEEV) is highly dangerous and has even been used as a biological weapon, the team does not intend to use the Venezuelan horse encephalitis virus (VEEV) directly for experimental research.
for safety reasons, the team found the Sindbis virus, which has an origin associated with the Venezuelan horse encephalitis virus (VEEV) and can cause only mild fever after infection.
team replaced the Sindbis virus with part of the VEEV virus, built the hybrid virus Sindbis-VEEV, which infects cells like the real Venezuelan horse encephalitis virus (VEEV) but does not cause serious disease.
, using CRISPR screening technology based on CRISPR gene editing developed by Zhang Feng, the team found that the Sindbis-VEEV virus could not be infected only after the LDLRAD3 gene had been removed by removing genes from neuron cells in mice.
the LDLRAD3 gene was restored, neuron cells were infected with Sindbis-VEEV virus again.
addition, the virus can infect cells that could not otherwise be infected by Theindbis-VEEV virus.
same results for human cells, dr. William Klimstra of the University of Pittsburgh confirmed the findings using the real Venezuelan horse encephalitis virus (VEEV).
these results have found and confirmed that the LDLRAD3 protein is a subject of the Venezuelan horse encephalitis virus (VEEV) entering the cell, so blocking the binding of the Venezuelan horse encephalitis virus (VEEV) to the LDLRAD3 protein can prevent infection of the virus.
Because LDLRAD3 is naturally present in human cells and cannot be removed, the team plans to induce the virus to bind to it by building LDLRAD3 baits so that it cannot infect cells and is removed by the immune system.
genetics studies have shown that domain 1 (D1) of LDLRAD3 is necessary and sufficient to support venezuelan horse encephalitis virus (VEEV) infection, and that both anti-LDLRAD3 antibodies and LDLRAD3 (D1)-Fc fusion proteins can block Venezuelan horse encephalitis virus (VEEV) infection in cell culture.
To test the effectiveness of the fusion protein bait in live animals, the team injected mice with the real Venezuelan horse encephalitis virus (VEEV) in two different ways, one by simulating mosquito bites, the other by injecting the virus under the skin and one directly into the brain.
results showed that mice treated with a placebo died within a week of contracting the virus, while the vast majority of mice receiving LDLRAD3 (D1)-Fc fusion protein bait survived, even in 10 mice injected directly into the brain with fusion protein bait.
these results suggest that fusion protein bait is an effective strategy to prevent human infection with venezuelan horse encephalitis virus (VEEV) and treat related diseases.
, the antiviral drug, which is based on human proteins rather than viral proteins, is less likely to cause the virus to become resistant.
, this response strategy can be used in the outbreak to prevent the spread and further spread of the virus.