Hadi Bayat
1,2 
, Fatemeh Naderi
3 , Amjad Hayat Khan
4 , Arash Memarnejadian
5 , Azam Rahimpour
1* 1 Department of Tissue Engineering and Applied Cell Sciences, School of Advanced Technologies in Medicine, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
2 Department of Molecular Genetics, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran.
3 Department of Molecular Genetics, Tehran Medical Sciences Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.
4 Institute for Research in Molecular Medicine (INFORMM), Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia.
5 Department of Hepatitis and AIDS, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran.
Abstract
Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)-associated protein nuclease (Cas) is identified as an adaptive immune system in archaea and bacteria. Type II of this system, CRISPR-Cas9, is the most versatile form that has enabled facile and efficient targeted genome editing. Viral infections have serious impacts on global health and conventional antiviral therapies have not yielded a successful solution hitherto. The CRISPR-Cas9 system represents a promising tool for eliminating viral infections. In this review, we highlight 1) the recent progress of CRISPR-Cas technology in decoding and diagnosis of viral outbreaks, 2) its applications to eliminate viral infections in both pre-integration and provirus stages, and 3) various delivery systems that are employed to introduce the platform into target cells.