Emerging Antiviral Defense Systems with Genome-Editing Potential

Emerging antiviral defense systems are expanding the conceptual and practical boundaries of genome editing. Across bacteria, archaea, and eukaryotes, hosts have evolved diverse pathways to detect and neutralize invading nucleic acids with high speed and specificity. The rapid discovery of new defenses—many with compact effectors, unusual catalytic activities, and distinct targeting rules—suggests that CRISPR is only one example of a much broader class of programmable nucleic-acid technologies. This Research Topic will bring together advances that connect antiviral defense biology with genome-editing tool development, emphasizing mechanistic insight, rigorous engineering, and quantitative benchmarking, with a particular focus on original research articles that present novel data and strong experimental or computational validation.We welcome contributions that identify and validate emerging defense systems, dissect their molecular mechanisms, and repurpose their effectors into practical platforms for DNA and/or RNA targeting, genome modification, gene regulation, and related applications. Submissions should go beyond preliminary or purely descriptive findings and demonstrate clear functional relevance through robust datasets and reproducible methodologies. Studies may span computational mining and functional screening, biochemical and structural characterization, and engineering strategies that improve programmability, efficiency, specificity, and safety. We particularly encourage work that clarifies how these systems select targets (e.g., sequence constraints, recognition motifs, cofactors), how they activate and execute cleavage or modification, and how these properties can be tuned to reduce toxicity and off-target activity across organisms and cell types. Research addressing delivery constraints (e.g., cargo size, expression control, conditional activation, tissue specificity) and rigorous, side-by-side benchmarking against established editors is also strongly encouraged.We welcome submissions across the following themes, though this list is not exhaustive:1. System discovery and validation: Identification of novel antiviral systems supported by functional validation.2. Mechanistic dissection: Experimental insights into target recognition, activation, and catalytic activity.3. New editing modalities: Demonstration of novel DNA/RNA targeting or modification capabilities.4. Engineering and optimization: Data-driven improvements in activity, specificity, and safety.5. Delivery and control: Experimentally validated strategies for delivery, expression, and regulation.6. Benchmarking and standards: Transparent comparisons to existing tools using reproducible assays.7. Tool-adjacent applications: Functional development of nucleic-acid targeting platforms for sensing, recording, or antiviral applications.Overall, we seek submissions that combine novelty with depth, prioritizing original, data-driven studies that provide clear evidence of mechanism, function, and potential utility. Topic editors: Mohammad Tarequl Islam, Mohammad Ahsan, Sudhakar Natarajan Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/78244/emerging-antiviral-defense-systems-with-genome-editing-potential