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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A meiotic driver hijacks an epigenetic reader to disrupt mitosis in noncarrier offspring
Tags: Genomics, Selfish genetic elements, Yeast and FungiYu Hua, Jianxiu Zhang, et al., PNAS, 121. 2024.
Killer meiotic drivers (KMDs) are selfish genetic elements that distort Mendelian inheritance by selectively killing meiotic products lacking the KMD element, thereby promoting their own propagation. Although KMDs have been found in diverse eukaryotes, only a limited number of ...
Structural duality enables a single protein to act as a toxin–antidote pair for meiotic drive
Tags: Toxin-antidote, Yeast and FungiYu Hua, Jianxiu Zhang, et al., PNAS, 121. 2024.
In sexual reproduction, selfish genetic elements known as killer meiotic drivers (KMDs) bias inheritance by eliminating gametes that do not carry them. The selective killing behavior of most KMDs can be explained by a toxin–antidote model, where a toxin harms all gametes while ...
Exploring The Dynamics of Gene Drive Mosquitoes Within Wild Populations Using an Agent-Based Simulation
Tags: Africa, Gene drive, Malaria, Modeling, Vector controlS. Wickramasooriya, I. Mahmood, et al., IEEE Xplore, 2024.
Gene drive technology is emerging as a potentially powerful tool in combating vector-borne diseases – notably malaria. This study introduces an agent-based model (ABM) focused on the deployment of genetically engineered mosquitoes with gene drive (GEM) in Príncipe Island, ...
The Meiotic Drive: Intragenomic Competition and Selection
Tags: Chromosomal drive, Fruit fly, Genetics, Rodents, Yeast and FungiI. A. Zakharov, Russian Journal of Genetics, 60:1311-1318. 2024.
The article considers the distribution and mechanisms of the meiotic drive as a phenomenon manifested in unequal transmission of gene alleles and/or homologous chromosomes into gametes during meiosis. The meiotic drive has been studied in the most detail in Drosophila, mice, ...
Variable effects of transient Wolbachia infections on alphaviruses in Aedes aegypti
Tags: Aedes, Mosquitoes, Vector control, WolbachiaBrittany L. Dodson, Sujit Pujhari, et al., PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, 2024.
Wolbachia pipientis (= Wolbachia) has promise as a tool to suppress virus transmission by Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. However, Wolbachia can have variable effects on mosquito-borne viruses. This variation remains poorly characterized, yet the multimodal effects of Wolbachia on ...
Biotechnology-enhanced genetic controls of the global pest Drosophila suzukii
Tags: Fruit fly, Genetic biocontrol, Pest management, Sterile insect technique (SIT)Ying Yan, Hassan M.M. Ahmed, Ernst A. Wimmer, et al., Trends in Biotechnology, 2024.
Genetic control is a biological control method that introduces traits that sterilize, kill, or modify the population via intraspecific mating. Therefore, it is regarded as a species-specific and environmentally friendly management option for pest species. Spotted wing ...
Improving the suppressive power of homing gene drive by co-targeting a distant-site female fertility gene
Tags: CRISPR, Fruit fly, Genetic engineering, ModelingFaber, N.R., Xu, X., Chen, J. et al., Nature Communications, 15. 2024.
Gene drive technology has the potential to address major biological challenges. Well-studied homing suppression drives have been shown to be highly efficient in Anopheles mosquitoes, but for other organisms, lower rates of drive conversion prevent elimination of the target ...
Navigating biosafety regulatory frameworks for genetic engineering in Africa: a focus on genome editing and gene drive technologies
Tags: Africa, Gene drive, Genetic engineering, Policy, RegulationTilahun Rabuma, Felix Moronta-Barrios, Wendy Craig, Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology, 12. 2024.
Genome editing and gene drive technologies are increasingly gaining attraction in Africa, with researchers exploring their potential applications in agriculture, health and the environment. Acknowledging that robust regulatory frameworks are crucial in facilitating the ...
Engineering Resilient Gene Drives Towards Sustainable Malaria Control: Predicting, Testing and Overcoming Target Site Resistance
Tags: CRISPR, Gene drive, Mosquitoes, Population suppression, Resistance, Selfish genetic elementsIoanna Morianou, Lee Phillimore, Bhavin S. Khatri,, bioRxiv, 2024.
CRISPR-based gene drives are selfish genetic elements with the potential to spread through entire insect populations for sustainable vector control. Gene drives designed to disrupt the reproductive capacity of females can suppress laboratory populations of the malaria mosquito. ...
Pest control gets the CRISPR treatment
Tags: Ecology, Fruit fly, Pest management, Sterile insect technique (SIT)Seydel, C., Nature Biotechnology, 2024.
In June 2024, the St. Louis–based pest control company Agragene released genetically modified fruit flies on berry farms in California and Oregon, moving the technology out of the laboratory and into contained field testing. The trial marked a milestone for a next-generation ...
Parental-effect gene-drive elements under partial selfing, or why do Caenorhabditis genomes have hyperdivergent regions?
Tags: Ecology, Gene drive, Gene drive mechanisms, Other invertebrates, Population genetics/dynamicsMatthew V Rockman, Genetics, 2024.
Self-fertile Caenorhabditis nematodes carry a surprising number of Medea elements, alleles that act in heterozygous mothers and cause death or developmental delay in offspring that don’t inherit them. At some loci, both alleles in a cross operate as independent Medeas, ...
Stalk-eyed flies carrying a driving X chromosome compensate by increasing fight intensity
Tags: Other invertebrates, Selfish genetic elements, X chromosomeKimberly A. Paczolt, Macy E. Pritchard, Gabrielle T. Welsh, et al., Frontiers in Ethology, 3. 2024.
Exaggerated ornaments provide opportunities to understand how selection can operate at different levels to shape the evolution of a trait. While these features aid their bearer in attracting mates or fending off competitors, they can also be costly and influenced by the ...
Wolbachia Invasion in Mosquitoes with Incomplete CI, Imperfect Maternal Transmission and Maturation Delay
Tags: Cytoplasmic incompatibility, Modeling, Population modification/replacement, Transmission distortion, WolbachiaMa X, Su Y, Bulletin of Mathematical Biology, 2024.
The mechanism of cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI) is important in the study of Wolbachia invasion in wild mosquitoes. Su et al. (Bull Math Biol 84(9):95, 2022) proposed a delay differential equation model by relating the CI effect to maturation delay. In this paper, we ...
Wolbachia-based emerging strategies for control of vector-transmitted disease
Tags: Arbovirus, Ecology, Genetically modified organisms, Risk and safety, Vector control, WolbachiaDiego Montenegro, Gerardo Cortés-Cortés, María Guadalupe Balbuena-Alonso, et al., Acta Tropica, 260. 2024.
Dengue fever is a mosquito-transmitted disease of great public health importance. Dengue lacks adequate vaccine protection and insecticide-based methods of mosquito control are proving increasingly ineffective. Here we review the emerging use of mosquitoes transinfected with the ...
The potential of gene drives in malaria vector species to control malaria in African environments
Tags: Africa, CRISPR, Gene drive, Gene editing, Malaria, ModelingHancock, P.A., North, A., Leach, A.W. et al., Nature Communications, 15. 2024.
Gene drives are a promising means of malaria control with the potential to cause sustained reductions in transmission. In real environments, however, their impacts will depend on local ecological and epidemiological factors. We develop a data-driven model to investigate the ...
Practical Application of a Relationship-Based Model to Engagement for Gene-Drive Vector Control Programs
Tags: Africa, Gene drive, Modeling, Stakeholder engagement, Vector controlAna Kormos, Lodney Nazaré, Adionilde Aguiar dos Santos, and Gregory C. Lanzaro, The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 111:341-360. 2024.
Engagement is an important component in the advancement of gene-drive vector control research programs as developers look to transition the technology from the laboratory to the field. As research advances and engagement surrounding this novel technology is put into practice, ...
Identification of novel genes responsible for a pollen killer present in local natural populations of Arabidopsis thaliana
Tags: CRISPR, Ecology, Population genetics/dynamics, Selfish genetic elementsAnthony Ricou, Matthieu Simon, et al., bioRxiv, 2024.
Certain genetic elements are qualified as selfish because they favor their transmission to the progeny during reproduction to the detriment of gametes that do not carry them. These elements are widespread in fungi as well as in plants or in animals, and they are made up of two or ...
Evolutionary modes of wtf meiotic driver genes in Schizosaccharomyces pombe
Tags: Selfish genetic elements, Yeast and FungiYan-Hui Xu, Fang Suo, Xiao-Ran Zhang, et al., Genome Biology and Evolution, 2024.
Killer meiotic drivers (KMDs) are a class of selfish genetic elements that bias inheritance in their favor by destroying meiotic progeny that do not carry them. How KMDs evolve is not well understood. In the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe, the largest gene family, known ...
Fluorescent-based sex-separation technique in major invasive crop pest, Drosophila suzukii
Tags: Fruit fly, Invasive species, Pest management, Sterile insect technique (SIT)Junru Liu, Danny Rayes, Minzhe Yang, Omar S. Akbari, bioRxiv, 2024.
Insect population biocontrol methods such as the sterile insect technique (SIT), represent promising alternatives to traditional pesticide-based control applications. To use these strategies efficiently requires scalable sex separation techniques which are currently lacking in ...
Evaluation of Wolbachia infection in Aedes aegypti suggests low prevalence and highly heterogeneous distribution in Medellín, Colombia
Tags: Aedes, Arbovirus, Dengue, Population modification/replacement, South/Central America, Vector control, Wolbachiarley Calle-Tobón, Raúl Rojo-Ospina, et al., Acta Tropica, 260. 2024.
Dengue virus, transmitted mainly by Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, is a significant public health challenge in tropical and subtropical countries, with an incidence that is growing at an alarming rate. The release of Wolbachia-carrying mosquitoes has been suggested as a strategy to ...
