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 Toxin-Antidote Selfish Element Increases Fitness of its Host

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L. Long, W. Xu, A. B. Paaby and P. T. McGrath,  bioRxiv,  2022.07.15.500229. 2022.
Selfish genetic elements can promote their transmission at the expense of individual survival, creating conflict between the element and the rest of the genome. Recently, a large number of toxin-antidote (TA) post-segregation distorters have been identified in non-obligate ...

Adaptive meiotic drive in selfing populations with heterozygote advantage

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E. Brud,  Theoretical Population Biology,  146:61-70. 2022.
The egalitarian allotment of gametes to each allele at a locus (Mendel's law of segregation) is a near-universal phenomenon characterizing inheritance in sexual populations. As exceptions to Mendel's law are known to occur, one can investigate why non-Mendelian segregation is not ...

Meiotic drive in house mice: mechanisms, consequences, and insights for human biology

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U. P. Arora and B. L. Dumont,  Chromosome Research,  2022.
Meiotic drive occurs when one allele at a heterozygous site cheats its way into a disproportionate share of functional gametes, violating Mendel's law of equal segregation. This genetic conflict typically imposes a fitness cost to individuals, often by disrupting the process of ...

Gene Drive in Species Complexes: Defining Target Organisms

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J. B. Connolly, J. Romeis, Y. Devos, D. C. M. Glandorf, G. Turner and M. B. Coulibaly,  Trends in Biotechnology,  2022.
Engineered gene drives, which bias their own inheritance to increase in frequency in target populations, are being developed to control mosquito malaria vectors. Such mosquitoes can belong to complexes of both vector and non-vector species that can produce fertile interspecific ...

A population modification gene drive targeting both Saglin and Lipophorin disables Plasmodium transmission in Anopheles mosquitoes

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E. I. Green, E. Jaouen, D. Klug, R. P. Olmo, A. Gautier, S. A. Blandin and E. Marois,  bioRxiv,  2022.07.08.499187. 2022.
Lipophorin is an essential, highly expressed lipid transporter protein that is secreted and circulates in insect hemolymph. We hijacked the Anopheles gambiae Lipophorin gene to make it co-express a single-chain version of antibody 2A10, which binds sporozoites of the malaria ...

Scalability of genetic biocontrols for eradicating invasive alien mammals

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A. Birand, P. Cassey, J. V. Ross, P. Q. Thomas and T. A. A. Prowse,  NeoBiota,  74:93-103. 2022.
CRISPR-based gene drives offer novel solutions for controlling invasive alien species, which could ultimately extend eradication efforts to continental scales. Gene drives for suppressing invasive alien vertebrates are now under development. Using a landscape-scale ...

Larval mosquito management and risk to aquatic ecosystems: A comparative approach including current tactics and gene-drive Anopheles techniques

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R. K. D. Peterson and M. G. Rolston,  Transgenic Research,  2022.
Genetic engineering of mosquitoes represents a promising tactic for reducing human suffering from malaria. Gene-drive techniques being developed that suppress or modify populations of Anopheles gambiae have the potential to be used with, or even possibly obviate, microbial and ...

Selfish centromeres and the wastefulness of human reproduction

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L. D. Hurst,  PLOS Biology,  20:e3001671. 2022.
Many human embryos die in utero owing to an excess or deficit of chromosomes, a phenomenon known as aneuploidy; this is largely a consequence of nondisjunction during maternal meiosis I. Asymmetries of this division render it vulnerable to selfish centromeres that promote their ...

Slow and steady wins the race: spatial and stochastic processes and the failure of suppression gene drives

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J. F. Paril and B. L. Phillips,  Molecular Ecology,  2022.
Gene drives that skew sex ratios offer a new management tool to suppress or eradicate pest populations. Early models and empirical work suggest that these suppression drives can completely eradicate well-mixed populations, but models that incorporate stochasticity and space ...

Rye B chromosomes differently influence the expression of A chromosome-encoded genes depending on the host species

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A. Boudichevskaia, A. Fiebig, K. Kumke, A. Himmelbach and A. Houben,  Chromosome Research,  2022.
The B chromosome (B) is a dispensable component of the genome in many species. To evaluate the impact of Bs on the transcriptome of the standard A chromosomes (A), comparative RNA-seq analyses of rye and wheat anthers with and without additional rye Bs were conducted. In both ...

Partial masculinization of Aedes aegypti females by conditional expression of Nix

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B. B. Kojin, E. Jakes, J. K. Biedler, Z. Tu and Z. N. Adelman,  PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases,  16:e0010598. 2022.
Here, we report on the conditional expression of Nixin transgenic A. aegypti under the control of the tetracycline-dependent (Tet-off) system, with the goal of establishing repressible sex distortion. A masculinization phenotype was observed in three of the seven transgenic lines ...

Mendel’s laws of heredity on his 200th birthday: What have we learned by considering exceptions?

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J. B. Wolf, A. C. Ferguson-Smith and A. Lorenz,  Heredity,  129:1-3. 2022.
Violations of Mendel’s laws can generically be referred to as ‘non-Mendelian inheritance’. However, from that broad perspective, nearly all inheritance systems would show non-Mendelian inheritance (at least to some degree). To hold exactly, Mendel’s laws impose strict ...

CRISPR-Mediated Genome Engineering in Aedes aegypti

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R. Sun, M. Li, C. J. McMeniman and O. S. Akbari,  piRNA: Methods and Protocols,  2022.
CRISPR-mediated genome engineering technologies have been adapted to a wide variety of organisms with high efficiency and specificity. The yellow fever mosquito, Aedes aegyptiAedes aegypti, is one such organism. It is also responsible for transmitting a wide variety of deadly ...

Public perspectives towards using gene drive for invasive species management in Australia

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A. Mankad, E. V. Hobman and L. Carter,  CSIRO,  2022.
Many pest animal species live and reproduce in high numbers across Australia. This includes animal species, such as cane toads, feral cats, foxes, rodents, wild pigs, wild rabbits. These species significantly damage Australia’s agricultural industries, natural landscapes, and ...

The suppressive potential of a gene drive in populations of invasive social wasps is currently limited

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A. B. Meiborg, N. R. Faber, B. A. Taylor, B. A. Harpur and G. Gorjanc,  bioRxiv,  2022.06.27.497711. 2022.
Social insects are very successful invasive species, and the continued increase of global trade and transportation has exacerbated this problem. The yellow-legged hornet, Vespa velutina nigrithorax (henceforth Asian hornet), is drastically expanding its range in Western Europe. ...

cifB-transcript levels largely explain cytoplasmic incompatibility variation across divergent Wolbachia

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J. D. Shropshire, E. Hamant, W. R. Conner and B. S. Cooper,  PNAS Nexus,  2022.
Divergent hosts often associate with intracellular microbes that influence their fitness. Maternally transmitted Wolbachia bacteria are the most common of these endosymbionts due largely to cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI) that kills uninfected embryos fertilized by ...

Manipulating Insect Sex Determination Pathways for Genetic Pest Management: Opportunities and Challenges

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A. Siddall, T. Harvey-Samuel, T. Chapman and P. T. Leftwich,  Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology,  10. 2022.
Sex determination pathways in insects are generally characterised by an upstream primary signal, which is highly variable across species, and that regulates the splicing of a suite of downstream but highly-conserved genes (transformer, doublesex and fruitless). In turn, these ...

Public deliberation and the regulation of gene drive in the USA

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W. F. West, L. W. Buchman and R. F. Medina,  Science and Public Policy,  scac032. 2022.
Gene drive is a new form of biotechnology designed to bias the inheritance of selected traits in animal or plant species that reproduce sexually and have relatively short reproductive cycles. Unlike traditional breeding techniques and other forms of biotechnology, gene drive is ...

Intron-derived small RNAs for silencing viral RNAs in mosquito cells

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P. Y. L. Tng, L. Z. Carabajal Paladino, M. A. E. Anderson, Z. N. Adelman, R. Fragkoudis, R. Noad and L. Alphey,  PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases,  16:e0010548. 2022.
Aedes aegypti and Ae. albopictus are the main vectors of mosquito-borne viruses of medical and veterinary significance. Many of these viruses have RNA genomes. Exogenously provided, e.g. transgene encoded, small RNAs could be used to inhibit virus replication, breaking the ...

The AalNix3&4 isoform is required and sufficient to convert Aedes albopictus females into males

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Y. Zhao, B. Jin, P. Liu, X. Xiao, L. Cai, Z. Xie, L. Kong, T. Liu, W. Yang, Y. Wu, J. Gu, Z. Tu, A. A. James and X.-G. Chen,  PLOS Genetics,  18:e1010280. 2022.
Author summary Nix serves as a conserved male-determining factor in the two most important mosquito arboviral vectors, Ae. aegypti and Ae. albopictus. AaeNix alone can convert Ae. aegypti females into fertile but flightless males. AalNix has four alternative splice isoforms ...

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