Scholarly Literature

This is a database of scholarly literature that concentrates currently on natural and engineered selfish genetic elements (gene drives).  The latest are shown here.
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Modelling and analysis of periodic impulsive releases of the Nilaparvata lugens infected with wStri-Wolbachia

Xiangjun Dai, Qi Quan & Jianjun Jiao,  Journal of Biological Dynamics,  17:1. 2023.
In this paper, we formulate a population suppression model and a population replacement model with periodic impulsive releases of Nilaparvata lugens infected with wStri. The conditions for the stability of wild-N.lugens -eradication periodic solution of two systems are obtained ...
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Food for thought: Assessing the consumer welfare impacts of deploying irreversible, landscape-scale biotechnologies

Michael S. Jones, Zachary S. Brown,  Food Policy,  121. 2023.
Genetically engineered insects have gained attention as regionally deployed pest control technologies, with substantial applications in agriculture for combatting intractable crop pests and diseases. One potential tool is a ‘gene drive’, using CRISPR-based gene editing. In ...
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Manipulating the Destiny of Wild Populations Using CRISPR

Raban R, Marshall JM, Hay BA, Akbari OS.,  Annual Reviews,  57:361-390. 2023.
Genetic biocontrol aims to suppress or modify populations of species to protect public health, agriculture, and biodiversity. Advancements in genome engineering technologies have fueled a surge in research in this field, with one gene editing technology, CRISPR, leading the ...
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A framework for identifying fertility gene targets for mammalian pest control

Clark, A. C., Edison, R., Esvelt, K., Kamau, S., Dutoit, L., Champer, J., Champer, S. E., Messer, P. W., Alexander, A., & Gemmell, N. J.,  Molecular Ecology Resources,  00:1–14. 2023.
Fertility-targeted gene drives have been proposed as an ethical genetic approach for managing wild populations of vertebrate pests for public health and conservation benefit. This manuscript introduces a framework to identify and evaluate target gene suitability based on ...
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Anopheles gambiae on remote islands in the Indian Ocean: origins and prospects for malaria elimination by genetic modification of extant populations

Ditter, R.E., Campos, M., Crepeau, M.W. et al.,  Scientific Reports,  13. 2023.
The mosquito Anopheles gambiae s.s. is a primary malaria vector throughout sub-Saharan Africa including the islands of the Comoros archipelago (Anjouan, Grande Comore, Mayotte and Mohéli). These islands are located at the northern end of the Mozambique Channel in eastern Africa. ...
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Wolbachia Transinfection Via Embryonic Microinjection

Zhang, M., Xi, Z. ,  Methods in Molecular Biology,  2739. 2023.
The process of transferring Wolbachia from one species to another to establish a stable, maternally inherited infection in the target species is known as transinfection. The success of transinfection is primarily achieved through embryonic microinjection, which is the most direct ...
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Measuring Host Fitness Effects and Transmission of Wolbachia Strains in Aedes aegypti Mosquitoes

Ross, P.A. ,  Methods in Molecular Biology,  2739. 2023.
Lines of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes infected with heritable Wolbachia bacteria are being developed and released for arbovirus control. Coordinated releases of lab-reared Wolbachia mosquitoes have reduced local disease incidence by spreading virus-blocking Wolbachia strains and by ...
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Procedures for the Detection of Wolbachia-Conferred Antiviral Protection in Drosophila melanogaster

Chrostek, E.,  Methods in Molecular Biology,  2739. 2023.
Spread of Wolbachia infections in host populations may be enhanced by Wolbachia-conferred protection from viral pathogens. Wolbachia-infected Drosophila melanogaster survive the pathogenic effects of positive-sense single-stranded RNA virus infections at a higher rate than the ...
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Use of Drosophila Transgenics to Identify Functions for Symbiont Effectors

Cortez, C.T., Murphy, R.O., Owens, I.M., Beckmann, J.F. ,  Methods in Molecular Biology,  2739. 2023.
Wolbachia, one of the most successful and studied insect symbionts, and Drosophila, one of the most understood model insects, can be exploited as complementary tools to unravel mechanisms of insect symbiosis. Although Wolbachia itself cannot be grown axenically as clonal isolates ...
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Different mechanisms of X-ray irradiation-induced male and female sterility in Aedes aegypti

Zhang, H., Trueman, E., Hou, X. et al. ,  BMC Biology,  21. 2023.
Aedes aegypti (Ae. aegypti) is the major vector that transmits many diseases including dengue, Zika, and filariasis in tropical and subtropical regions. Due to the growing resistance to chemical-based insecticides, biological control methods have become an emerging direction to ...
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Efficient sex separation by exploiting differential alternative splicing of a dominant marker in Aedes aegypti

Shih-Che Weng, Igor Antoshechkin, Eric Marois, Omar S. Akbari,  PLoS Genetics,  2023.
Only female mosquitoes consume blood giving them the opportunity to transmit deadly human pathogens. Therefore, it is critical to remove females before conducting releases for genetic biocontrol interventions. Here we describe a robust sex-sorting approach termed SEPARATOR ...
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Advances and challenges in synthetic biology for mosquito control

Shih-Che Weng, Reem A. Masri, Omar S. Akbari,  Trends in Parasitology,  2023.
Mosquito-borne illnesses represent a significant global health peril, resulting in approximately one million fatalities annually. West Nile, dengue, Zika, and malaria are continuously expanding their global reach, driven by factors that escalate mosquito populations and pathogen ...
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Repeat mediated excision of gene drive elements for restoring wild-type populations

Pratima R Chennuri, Josef Zapletal, Raquel D Monfardini, Martial Loth Ndeffo-Mbah, Zach N Adelman, Kevin M Myles,  bioRxiv,  2023.
We demonstrate here that single strand annealing (SSA) repair can be co-opted for the precise autocatalytic excision of a drive element. Although SSA is not the predominant form of DNA repair in eukaryotic organisms, we increased the likelihood of its use by engineering direct ...
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Effects of different diets on Aedes aegypti adults: improving rearing techniques for sterile insect technique

Aynoanne Leandro Barbosa , Glayciane Costa Gois , Verenna Barros dos Santos , Aline Taiane de Macedo Pinto , Bianca Pires de Castro Andrade , Lucas Barbosa de Souza , Fernanda Hohana Almeida e Sá , Jair Fernandes Virginio and Mário Adriano Ávila Queiroz,  Bulletin of Entomological Research,  2023.
The aim was to evaluate the effect of different energy diets available in adulthood on the longevity, dispersal capacity and sexual performance of Aedes aegypti produced under a mass-rearing system. To evaluate the effects of diets in relation to the survival of the adult male ...
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Utility of surveillance data for planning for dengue elimination in Yogyakarta, Indonesia: a scenario-tree modelling approach

Melanie Bannister-Tyrrell, Alison Hillman, Citra Indrian, Riris Andono Ahmad, Adi Utarini, Cameron P Simmons, Katherine L Anders, Evan Sergeant,  BMJ Global Health,  8. 2023.
Field trials and modelling studies suggest that elimination of dengue transmission may be possible through widespread release of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes infected with the insect bacterium Wolbachia pipientis (wMel strain), in conjunction with routine dengue control activities. ...
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CRISPR-based gene drives generate super-Mendelian inheritance in the disease vector Culex quinquefasciatus

Tim Harvey-Samuel, Xuechun Feng, Emily M. Okamoto, Deepak-Kumar Purusothaman, Philip T. Leftwich, Luke Alphey & Valentino M. Gantz ,  Nature Communications,  14. 2023.
Culex mosquitoes pose a significant public health threat as vectors for a variety of diseases including West Nile virus and lymphatic filariasis, and transmit pathogens threatening livestock, companion animals, and endangered birds. Rampant insecticide resistance makes ...
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Gene drives for the extinction of wild metapopulations

Jason W. Olejarz, Martin A. Nowak ,  Journal of Theoretical Biology,  2023.
Population-suppressing gene drives may be capable of extinguishing wild populations, with proposed applications in conservation, agriculture, and public health. However, unintended and potentially disastrous consequences of release of drive-engineered individuals are extremely ...
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A toxin-antidote system contributes to interspecific reproductive isolation in rice

Shimin You, Zhigang Zhao, Xiaowen Yu, Shanshan Zhu, Jian Wang, Dekun Lei, Jiawu Zhou, Jing Li, Haiyuan Chen, Yanjia Xiao, Weiwei Chen, Qiming Wang, Jiayu Lu, Keyi Chen, Chunlei Zhou, Xin Zhang, Zhijun Cheng, Xiuping Guo, Yulong Ren, Xiaoming Zheng, Shijia,  Nature Communications,  14. 2023.
Breakdown of reproductive isolation facilitates flow of useful trait genes into crop plants from their wild relatives. Hybrid sterility, a major form of reproductive isolation exists between cultivated rice (Oryza sativa) and wild rice (O. meridionalis, Mer). Here, we report the ...
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Aedes aegypti microbiome composition covaries with the density of Wolbachia infection

Jane Pascar, Henry Middleton & Steve Dorus,  Microbiome,  11. 2023.
Wolbachia is a widespread bacterial endosymbiont that can inhibit vector competency when stably transinfected into the mosquito, Aedes aegypti, a primary vector of the dengue virus (DENV) and other arboviruses. Although a complete mechanistic understanding of pathogen blocking is ...
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Meiotic drive, postzygotic isolation, and the Snowball Effect

Robert L. Unckless,  bioRxiv,  2023.
As populations diverge, they accumulate incompatibilities which reduce gene flow and facilitate the formation of new species. Simple models suggest that the genes that cause Dobzhansky-Muller incompatibilities should accumulate at least as fast as the square of the number of ...
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