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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Different mechanisms of X-ray irradiation-induced male and female sterility in Aedes aegypti
Tags: Aedes, Incompatible insect technique, Mosquitoes, Sterile insect technique (SIT), WolbachiaZhang, 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 ...
Efficient sex separation by exploiting differential alternative splicing of a dominant marker in Aedes aegypti
Tags: Aedes, Gene editingShih-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 ...
Advances and challenges in synthetic biology for mosquito control
Tags: Gene editing, Genetic biocontrol, Mosquitoes, Synthetic biology, Vector controlShih-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 ...
Repeat mediated excision of gene drive elements for restoring wild-type populations
Tags: Gene drive, Genetic engineeringPratima 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 ...
Effects of different diets on Aedes aegypti adults: improving rearing techniques for sterile insect technique
Tags: Sterile insect technique (SIT)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 ...
Utility of surveillance data for planning for dengue elimination in Yogyakarta, Indonesia: a scenario-tree modelling approach
Tags: Aedes, Dengue, Field trials, Vector controlMelanie 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. ...
Gene drives for the extinction of wild metapopulations
Tags: Population genetics/dynamics, Synthetic biologyJason 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 ...
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 ...
Aedes aegypti microbiome composition covaries with the density of Wolbachia infection
Tags: Mosquitoes, Population modification/replacementJane 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 ...
Meiotic drive, postzygotic isolation, and the Snowball Effect
Tags: Population genetics/dynamics, Population modification/replacement, Transmission distortionRobert 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 ...
Transformative Novel Technologies and Global Environmental Governance
Tags: Ethics, Gene drive, Gene drive synthetic, Governance, RegulationF. Rabitz, Cambridge University Press, 2023.
Transformative Novel Technologies are potential gamechangers for confronting climate change, biodiversity loss, and many other elements of the global environmental crisis, allowing us to achieve a more sustainable future. The contemporary and future international governance of ...
The suppression of a selfish genetic element increases a male’s mating success in a fly
Tags: Mosquitoes, Transmission distortionSophie Lyth, Andrea J. Betancourt, Tom A. R. Price, Rudi L. Verspoor, Ecology and Evolution, 2023.
X chromosome meiotic drive (XCMD) kills Y-bearing sperm during spermatogenesis, leading to the biased transmission of the selfish X chromosome. Despite this strong transmission, some natural XCMD systems remain at low and stable frequencies, rather than rapidly spreading through ...
Gene Drive Mosquitoes from Islamic Perspective: A Preliminary Discussion
Tags: CRISPR, Ethics, Gene driveN. M. Isa, Global Journal Al-Thaqafah, 13. 2023.
Gene drive mosquitoes could spread desired trait, such as female infertility within a wild population at a rate higher than the normal inheritance rate and could eventually wipe out the population. Consequently, this makes gene drive mosquitoes one of the promising approaches in ...
Generating and testing reagents for CRISPR/Cas9 based homologous recombination and gene drive in Tribolium
Tags: CRISPR, Gene drive, Gene drive syntheticC. M. Hannah, J. H. Kennedy, M. Megan, E. Z. Gabriel, W. Michael and Z. Andrew, bioRxiv, 2023.11.07.566100. 2023.
CRISPR/Cas9 gene drive systems are possible in a few insects and ever expanding. Nonetheless, success in one species and techniques developed for it are not necessarily applicable to other species. As such, the development and expansion of gene drive systems is dependent upon ...
Symbiotic Wolbachia in mosquitoes and its role in reducing the transmission of mosquito-borne diseases: updates and prospects
Tags: Aedes, Dengue, Mosquitoes, Population modification/replacement, Population suppression, WolbachiaA. Minwuyelet, G. P. Petronio, D. Yewhalaw, A. Sciarretta, I. Magnifico, D. Nicolosi, R. Di Marco and G. Atenafu, Frontiers in Microbiology, 14. 2023.
Mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria, dengue fever, West Nile virus, chikungunya, Zika fever, and filariasis have the greatest health and economic impact. These mosquito-borne diseases are a major cause of morbidity and mortality in tropical and sub-tropical areas. Due to the ...
Male-killing virus in a noctuid moth Spodoptera litura
Tags: Arbovirus, Moths, Selfish genetic elements, Sex distorterK. Nagamine, Y. Kanno, K. Sahara, T. Fujimoto, A. Yoshido, Y. Ishikawa, M. Terao, D. Kageyama and Y. Shintani, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120:e2312124120. 2023.
A female-biased sex ratio is considered advantageous for the cytoplasmic elements that inhabit sexually reproducing organisms. There are numerous examples of bacterial symbionts in the arthropod cytoplasm that bias the host sex ratio toward females through various means, ...
Current Status of the Main Olive Pests: Useful Integrated Pest Management Strategies and Genetic Tools
Tags: Biological control, Gene drive, Genetic biocontrol, Genetic engineering, Sterile insect technique (SIT)E. Lantero, B. Matallanas and C. Callejas, Applied Sciences, 13. 2023.
Mediterranean olive cultivation faces challenges in the global environmental change context. Pests and diseases caused by arthropods such as Bactrocera oleae, Prays oleae, and certain vectors of Xylella fastidiosa are expected to increase and spread in part due to this global ...
Genetic conflict and the origin of multigene families: implications for sex chromosome evolution
Tags: Evolution, Transmission distortionE. Martí and A. M. Larracuente, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 290:20231823. 2023.
Sex chromosomes are havens for intragenomic conflicts. The absence of recombination between sex chromosomes creates the opportunity for the evolution of segregation distorters: selfish genetic elements that hijack different aspects of an individual's reproduction to increase ...
Biotechnological Potential of Microorganisms for Mosquito Population Control and Reduction in Vector Competence
Tags: Biological control, Genetic biocontrol, Mosquitoes, Other Symbionts, Population modification/replacementR. D. Katak, A. M. Cintra, B. C. Burini, O. Marinotti, J. A. Souza-Neto and E. M. Rocha, Insects, 14. 2023.
Mosquitoes transmit pathogens that cause human diseases such as malaria, dengue fever, chikungunya, yellow fever, Zika fever, and filariasis. Biotechnological approaches using microorganisms have a significant potential to control mosquito populations and reduce their vector ...
Conceptual risk assessment of mosquito population modification gene-drive systems to control malaria transmission: preliminary hazards list workshops
Tags: Gene drive, Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Mosquitoes, Population modification/replacement, Regulation, Risk and safety, Risk assessmentA. Kormos, G. Dimopoulos, E. Bier, G. C. Lanzaro, J. M. Marshall and A. A. James, Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology, 11. 2023.
The field-testing and eventual adoption of genetically-engineered mosquitoes (GEMs) to control vector-borne pathogen transmission will require them meeting safety criteria specified by regulatory authorities in regions where the technology is being considered for use and other ...

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