Genetic Engineering Technology Promises To Sterilize Disease-Spreading Mosquito Populations

Inspired by improvements in CRISPR-based genetic engineering, scientists have developed a more precise insect sterilization system to curtail, or even eliminate, disease-spreading Aedes aegypti mosquito populations. The so-called “precision-guided sterile insect technique,” or pgSIT, relies on gene alterations that disrupt fertility in males and flight in females. Gene-altered males are released into a problematic population to compete with healthy males. Scientists described the novel method in a new paper, published Friday in the journal Nature Communications. “pgSIT is a new scalable genetic control system that uses a CRISPR-based approach to engineer deployable mosquitoes that can suppress populations,” corresponding author Omar Akbari said in a press release. “Males don’t transmit diseases so the idea is that as you release more and more sterile males, you can suppress the population without relying on harmful chemicals and insecticides,” said Akbari, a professor of biological sciences at the University of California, San Diego.

More related to this:

Suppressing mosquito populations with precision guided sterile males

Temperature-Inducible Precision Guided Sterile Insect Technique

Non-Mendelian segregation of sex chromosomes in heterospecific Drosophila males

Mechanisms of sex determination and transmission ratio distortion in Aedes aegypti

Irreversible ecosystem engineering with Gene Drive Organisms