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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Testing a candidate meiotic drive locus identified by pool sequencing

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D. A. Barbash, B. Jin, K. H. C. Wei and A.-M. Dion-Côté,  G3 Genes|Genomes|Genetics,  2023.
Meiotic drive biases the transmission of alleles in heterozygous individuals, such that Mendel’s law of equal segregation is violated. Most examples of meiotic drive have been discovered over the past century based on causing sex-ratio distortion or the biased transmission of ...

A natural gene drive element confers speciation in rice

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Y. Li, S. Liu and R. Shen,  Chinese Science Bulletin,  68:3400-3402. 2023.
For a long time, although many important advances have been made in the field of rice hybrid sterility, the specific molecular mechanism behind the "killer-protector"/ "poison-antidote" model has been unclear. Recently, the team of Academician Wan Jianmin of Nanjing Agricultural ...

Engineered and natural gene drives: mechanistically the same, yet not same in kind

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R. F. Medina and J. Kuzma,  Nature Communications,  14:5994. 2023.
We propose the use of the terms natural gene drive (NGD) and engineered gene drive (EGD) arguing against James et al.1, who think both should be included within the term “gene drive”, based on their mechanistic similarities. Thanks to CRISPR-Cas-based gene editing, engineered ...

Wolbachia Induces Structural Defects Harmful to Drosophila simulans Riverside Spermiogenesis.

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M. G. Riparbelli, A. Pratelli and G. Callaini,  Cells,  12. 2023.
The relationship between cytoplasmic incompatibility and the obligate intracellular alphaproteobacteria Wolbachia has for a long time been reported. Although the molecular mechanisms responsible for this reproductive alteration are beginning to be understood, the effects of ...

Effect of 2 sex-sorting time schedules on SIT facility management

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M. Malfacini, A. Puggioli, F. Balestrino, M. Carrieri, M. L. Dindo and R. Bellini,  Journal of Insect Science,  23:9. 2023.
Improvements are needed in mosquito mass-rearing to effectively implement the sterile insect technique (SIT). However, managing this technique is challenging and resource intensive. SIT relies on mass rearing, sterilization, and release of adult males to reduce field populations. ...

Development and characterization of microsatellite markers for the tsetse species Glossina brevipalpis and preliminary population genetics analyses

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F. Gstöttenmayer, P. Moyaba, M. Rodriguez, F. C. Mulandane, H. N. Mucache, L. Neves, C. De Beer, S. Ravel, T. De Meeûs, R. L. Mach, M. J. B. Vreysen and A. M. M. Abd-Alla,  Parasite,  30:34. 2023.
Tsetse flies, the vectors of African trypanosomes are of key medical and economic importance and one of the constraints for the development of Africa. Tsetse fly control is one of the most effective and sustainable strategies used for controlling the disease. Knowledge about ...

Quantifying Fitness Costs in Transgenic Aedes aegypti Mosquitoes

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I. Sanchez-Vargas, A. E. Williams, L. E. Martin, I. Martin-Martin, S. Bennett, K. E. Olson and E. Calvo,  Journal of Visualized Experiments,  2023.
Transgenic mosquitoes often display fitness costs compared to their wild-type counterparts. In this regard, fitness cost studies involve collecting life parameter data from genetically modified mosquitoes and comparing them to mosquitoes lacking transgenes from the same genetic ...

Using Wolbachia to control rice planthopper populations: progress and challenges

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Y. Guo, J. Shao, Y. Wu and Y. Li,  Frontiers in Microbiology,  14. 2023.
Wolbachia have been developed as a tool for protecting humans from mosquito populations and mosquito-borne diseases. The success of using Wolbachia relies on the facts that Wolbachia are maternally transmitted and that Wolbachia-induced cytoplasmic incompatibility provides a ...

Measuring the Impact of Genetic Heterogeneity and Chromosomal Inversions on the Efficacy of CRISPR-Cas9 Gene Drives in Different Strains of Anopheles gambiae

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Pescod, Poppy Bevivino, Giulia Anthousi, Amalia Shelton, Ruth Shepherd, Josephine Lombardo, Fabrizio Nolan, Tony,  The CRISPR Journal,  2023.
The human malaria vector Anopheles gambiae is becoming increasingly resistant to insecticides, spurring the development of genetic control strategies. CRISPR-Cas9 gene drives can modify a population by creating double-stranded breaks at highly specific targets, triggering copying ...

Mimicking superinfection exclusion disrupts alphavirus infection and transmission in the yellow fever mosquito Aedes aegypti

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Reitmayer, Christine M. Levitt, Emily Basu, Sanjay Atkinson, Barry Fragkoudis, Rennos Merits, Andres Lumley, Sarah Larner, Will Diaz, Adriana V. Rooney, Sara Thomas, Callum J. E. von Wyschetzki, Katharina Rausalu, Kai Alphey, Luk,  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,  120:e2303080120. 2023.
Multiple viruses, including pathogenic viruses, bacteriophages, and even plant viruses, cause a phenomenon termed superinfection exclusion whereby a currently infected cell is resistant to secondary infection by the same or a closely related virus. In alphaviruses, this process ...

MGDrivE 3: A decoupled vector-human framework for epidemiological simulation of mosquito genetic control tools and their surveillance

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A. Mondal, C. H. M. Sanchez and J. M. Marshall,  bioRxiv,  2023.09.09.556958. 2023.
We present MGDrivE 3 (Mosquito Gene Drive Explorer 3), a new version of a previously-developed framework, MGDrivE 2, that investigates the spatial population dynamics of mosquito genetic control systems and their epidemiological implications. The new framework incorporates three ...

Quantifying the impact of Wolbachia releases on dengue infection in Townsville, Australia

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Ogunlade, S. T. Adekunle, A. I. Meehan, M. T. McBryde, E. S.,  Scientific Reports,  13:14932. 2023.
From October 2014 to February 2019, local authorities in Townsville, North Queensland, Australia continually introduced Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes to control seasonal outbreaks of dengue infection. In this study, we develop a mathematical modelling framework to estimate the ...

New perspectives on the causes and consequences of male meiotic drive

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Courret, Cécile Wei, Xiaolu Larracuente, Amanda M.,  Current Opinion in Genetics & Development,  2023.
Gametogenesis is vulnerable to selfish genetic elements that bias their transmission to the next generation by cheating meiosis. These so-called meiotic drivers are widespread in plants, animals, and fungi and can impact genome evolution. Here, we summarize recent progress on the ...

Rodents as vehicle for delivery of transgenic bacteria to make paratransgenic sand fly vectors of cutaneous leishmaniasis in field condition

Ghassemi, Marzieh Akhavan, Amir Ahmad Zahraei-Ramazani, Alireza Yakhchali, Bagher Arandian, Mohammad Hossein Jafari, Reza Akhlaghi, Maryam Shirani-Bidabadi, Leila Azam, Kamal Koosha, Mona Oshaghi, Mohammad Ali,  Scientific Reports,  13:14912. 2023.
Vector-borne diseases, among them leishmaniasis, cause more than 700,000 deaths annually. The lack of an effective vaccination and the increasing resistance of sand flies to insecticides require the urgent development of innovative approaches to contain the disease. The use of ...

Molecular Evidence of Wolbachia Species in Wild-Caught Aedes albopictus and Aedes aegypti Mosquitoes in Four States of Northeast India

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Vinayagam, S. Nirmolia, T. Chetry, S. Kumar, N. P. Saini, P. Bhattacharyya, D. R. Bhowmick, I. P. Sattu, K. Patgiri, S. J.,  Journal of Tropical Medicine,  2023.
Wolbachia, a Gram-negative intracellular bacterium, naturally infects many arthropods, including mosquito vectors responsible for the spread of arboviral diseases such as Zika, chikungunya, and dengue fever. Certain Wolbachia strains are involved in inhibiting arbovirus ...

Jamestown Canyon virus is transmissible by Aedes aegypti and is only moderately blocked by Wolbachia co-infection

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M. J. Lau, H. L. C. Dutra, M. J. Jones, B. P. McNulty, A. M. Diaz, F. Ware-Gilmore and E. A. McGraw,  PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases,  17. 2023.
Jamestown Canyon virus (JCV), a negative-sense arbovirus, is increasingly common in the upper Midwest of the USA. Transmitted by a range of mosquito genera, JCV's primary amplifying host is white-tailed deer. Aedes aegypti is responsible for transmitting various positive-sense ...

The role of conflict in shaping plant biodiversity

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J. M. Coughlan,  New Phytologist,  2023.
Although intrinsic postzygotic reproductive barriers can play a fundamental role in speciation, their underlying evolutionary causes are widely debated. One hypothesis is that incompatibilities result from genomic conflicts. Here, I synthesize the evidence that conflict generates ...

Transgenic approaches in medical entomology: 2022 highlights

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M. L. Simões,  Journal of Medical Entomology,  tjad105. 2023.
Transgenesis has emerged as a powerful tool to control arthropod vectors and the diseases they transmit. Here, we highlight the latest developments on transgenic approaches in ticks, Anopheles and Aedes mosquitoes, based on recent findings and significant papers from 2022. We ...

Meiotic segregation and post-meiotic drive of the Festuca pratensis B chromosome

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R. Ebrahimzadegan, J. Fuchs, J. Chen, V. Schubert, A. Meister, A. Houben and G. Mirzaghaderi,  Chromosome Research,  31:26. 2023.
In many species, the transmission of B chromosomes (Bs) does not follow the Mendelian laws of equal segregation and independent assortment. This deviation results in transmission rates of Bs higher than 0.5, a process known as “chromosome drive”. Here, we studied the behavior ...

A synthetic biology approach to transgene expression

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P. Leftwich, T. , J. Purcell, C. , M. Anderson, A. E. , R. Fragkoudis, S. Basu, G. Lycett, T. and L. Alphey,  bioRxiv,  2023.08.31.555539. 2023.
The ability to control gene expression is pivotal in genetic engineering and synthetic biology. However, in most non-model and pest insect species, empirical evidence for predictable modulation of gene expression levels is lacking. This knowledge gap is critical for genetic ...

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