These pigs were made by zygote injection of the CRISPR CAS-9 system with guides targeting the immunoglobulin heavy chain (IgH) gene. The IgH knockout pigs were generated to deplete their B-lymphocyte population, resulting in an inability to generate a humoral immune response to a genotype 3 HEV infection.
- Yugo DM, Heffron CL, Ryu J, Uh K, Subramaniam S, Matzinger SR, Overend C, Cao D, Kenney SP, Sooryanarain H, Cecere T, LeRoith T, Yuan L, Jue N, Clark-Deener S, Lee K, Meng XJ. Infection Dynamics of Hepatitis E Virus in Wild-Type and Immunoglobulin Heavy Chain Knockout JH-/- Gnotobiotic Piglets. J Virol. 2018 Oct 12;92(21):e01208-18. doi: 10.1128/JVI.01208-18. PMID: 30111571; PMCID: PMC6189505.