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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Improvement of colony management in insect mass-rearing for sterile insect technique applications
Tags: Pest management, Sterile insect technique (SIT)Adly M.M. Abd-Alla, Anne Geiger, David Haymer, Insect Science, 2025.
Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) applications against major insect pests and disease vectors rely on the cost-effective production of high-quality sterile males. This largely depends on the optimal management of target pest colonies by maximizing the benefits provided by a ...
Leveraging Sex Determination Systems for Genetic Biocontrol of Dipteran Pests
Tags: Genetic biocontrol, Insects, Population suppression, Sex distorterMaxwell J. Scott, Zhijian Tu, Current Opinion in Insect Science, 2025.
Genetic biocontrol is an increasingly important way to suppress insect pest populations and to mitigate their economic and health impact. One key advantage is that it is species-specific as it relies on mating of released males with wild females to either suppress or modify ...
The role of the transformer gene in sex determination and its employment in CRISPR/Cas9-based homing gene drive in the global fruit pest Drosophila suzukii
Tags: CRISPR, Fruit fly, Sex distorterDan Deng, Xueying Yi, Wen Wen, Liuqing He, Wei Peng, Insect Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 184. 2025.
Sex determination of Diptera is established by the cascade genes such as transformer (tra), though the primary signals for sex determination differ among different insects. Here, we report the isolation, expression and function of tra gene in an invasive pest, Drosophila ...
Effect of egg irradiation on development and sterility of wild-type and Wolbachia trans-infected Aedes aegypti mosquito vectors
Tags: Aedes, Irradiation method, Mosquitoes, Sterile insect technique (SIT), WolbachiaKittayapong P, Ninphanomchai S, Thayanukul P, Limohpasmanee W, PLoS One, 20. 2025.
Sterile Insect Technique (SIT), Incompatible Insect Technique (IIT) or a combination of the two has become alternative promising vector control approaches. In order to apply these approaches, the targeted mosquitoes need to be sterilized and released. So far, the irradiation of ...
SELECTING A LARVAL DIET FOR SCALABLE MASS-REARING OF AEDES AEGYPTI IN STERILE INSECT TECHNIQUE APPLICATIONS
Tags: Aedes, Sterile insect technique (SIT)Aryaprema VS, Blore K, Sypes O, et al., Journal of the American Mosquito Control Association, 2025.
Controlling Aedes aegypti populations through traditional methods is increasingly difficult due to the development of insecticide resistance and their use of cryptic breeding habitats. The sterile insect technique has emerged as an effective tool for integrated vector ...
Heterogeneity in inhibition of genetically diverse dengue virus strains by Wolbachia
Tags: Aedes, Dengue, Genetic biocontrol, WolbachiaAfeez Sodeinde, Emilie Finch, Ke Li, et al., bioRxiv, 2025.
The release of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes transinfected with the virus-inhibiting Wolbachia bacterium has the potential to reduce the burden caused by dengue virus (DENV). However, the robustness of this control strategy across the wide genetic diversity of DENV remains ...
Apprehension of Technosciences and Initiation to Education for Uncertainty: Case of Gene Drive
Tags: Gene drive, Stakeholder engagementHayet Saoudi and Hanen Bouamoud, Qualitative Approaches to Pedagogical Engineering, 2025.
This research falls within the framework of education about uncertainty. The authors focused on one of the technosciences, namely genetic engineering, and treated it as a ‘socially acute issue'. The research involved a group of Tunisian third-year students in life and earth ...
Rapid protamine evolution suppresses meiotic drive in Drosophila
Tags: Fruit fly, Selfish genetic elements, Sex distorter, X chromosome, Y-chromosomeChing-Ho Chang, Aida Flor de la Cruz, Isabel Mejia Natividad, Alex Noyola, Harmit S. Malik, bioRxiv, 2025.
Many animal species replace histones with protamines during spermatogenesis. Despite their importance for sperm function, protamines rapidly evolve in many species; the biological causes behind their rapid evolution remain unknown. Here, using in vivo gene replacement, we ...
Suppression of Aedes albopictus in Sri Lanka using the Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) with a sustained effect
Tags: Dengue, Population suppression, Sterile insect technique (SIT), Vector controlMenaka Hapugoda, Nilmini Silva Gunawardene, Tharaka Ranathunge, Sudath Samaraweera, K. Karunathilake, Bazoumana B.D. Sow, Gayan Parakrama Withanage, Indika Weerasinghe, Hamidou Maiga and Jeremy Bouyer, Parasite, 32. 2025.
Dengue fever remains a significant public health concern in Sri Lanka, leading to recurrent epidemics and imposing substantial socio-economic burdens. This study aimed to assess the efficacy of the Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) against Aedes albopictus (Skuse), the predominant ...
Single-cell consequences of X-linked meiotic drive in stalk-eyed flies
Tags: Chromosomal drive, Insects, Selfish genetic elements, Sex distorter, X chromosomePrice PD, Parkus SM, Lloyd VJ, Alston BT, Bradshaw SL, Bates S, et al., PLoS Genet, 21. 2025.
Meiotic drivers, a class of selfish gene, are frequently located on sex chromosomes and have dramatic impacts on gamete development. However, our understanding of their molecular consequences for gamete production and sex chromosome regulation has focused on a handful of model ...
Advances in population-based interventions to control falciparum malaria
Tags: Africa, Gene drive, Malaria, Vector controlSamuel E Glossop, Thomas J Peto, Bipin Adhikari, Transactions of The Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 2025.
Malaria is a complex disease and transmission can be prevented in multiple ways. A range of interventions to achieve this became widely available from the year 2000, and cases continually declined, but progress has plateaued since 2015. This review aims to cover the ...
Reprogramming Sex for Vector Control: Maleness-Associated Transgenes in Aedes albopictus
Tags: Aedes, CRISPR, Population suppression, Sex distorter, Vector controlDoron Shalom Yishai Zaada, Philippos Aris Papathanos, Eric Marois, Current Opinion in Insect Science, 2025.
Among other challenges, the world currently faces the expansion of pest insects such as the tiger mosquito Aedes albopictus, a growing threat to public health due to the pathogens it can transmit. Current control approaches based on insecticides or elimination of mosquito larval ...
Experimental demonstration of daisy chain gene drive and modelling of daisy suppression systems
Tags: CRISPR, Gene drive, Modeling, Population genetics/dynamics, Population suppressionJialiang Guo, Weizhe Chen, Jackson Champer, bioRxiv, 2025.
CRISPR-based gene drive can address ecological problems by biased inheritance coupled with an effector for either population modification of suppression. However, the potential risk of uncontrolled spread impedes some applications of gene drive. Daisy chain gene drives have ...
Natural Selection of Synthetic Gene Drives for Population Suppression Can Favor an Intermediate Strength of Drive
Tags: Gene drive synthetic, Modeling, Population genetics/dynamics, Y-chromosomeP. J. Beaghton and Austin Burt, The American Naturalist, 206. 2025.
Synthetic gene drives are being investigated as tools to suppress pest populations, and it is important to understand how natural selection will act on variant drivers that may either arise by de novo mutation or be intentionally released. In this study, we extend previous ...
The Urgent Need for More Research on Wolbachia-Based Mosquito Interventions in Public Health
Tags: Aedes, Mosquitoes, WolbachiaOsvaldo Marinotti, Acta Tropica, 2025.
The release of Wolbachia pipientis-infected Aedes aegypti mosquitoes has emerged as a novel strategy to reduce the transmission of arboviruses such as dengue, chikungunya, and Zika. Wolbachia-based approaches to dengue control include population replacement, which reduces ...
Engagement for genetic modification technologies in conservation: For whom, how, and for what ends?
Tags: Biodiversity/Conservation, Gene drive, Genetic engineering, Stakeholder engagementSylvia Nissen, Franca A. Buelow, Riley Taitingfong, Amanda Black, Environmental Science & Policy, 171. 2025.
Questions of engagement loom large for the use of genetic modification technologies in conservation. As scientific teams rapidly move towards implementing changes that will fundamentally alter entire species, concerns are regularly raised that associated engagement activities are ...
Wolbachia Infection in Iranian Malaria Vectors: Prevalence and Biocontrol Implications
Tags: Anopheles, Asia, Genetic biocontrol, Vector control, WolbachiaShahin Saeedi, Fateh Karimian, Seyed Hassan Moosa-Kazemi, et al., Tropical Medicine & International health, 2025.
Wolbachia-based vector control is an emerging tool in malaria prevention research. This study evaluates Wolbachia infection in Iranian mosquitoes, focusing on seven known malaria vectors. Mosquitoes were collected from nine provinces of Iran (2016–2019), ...
Sequence and expression analysis of potential spermatogenesis-specific gene cognates in the Caribbean fruit fly, Anastrepha suspensa
Tags: Fruit fly, Gene editing, Sterile insect technique (SIT)Alfred M. Handler, Richard B. Furlong, Chao Chen, Daniel A. Hahn, Insect Science, 2025.
The sterile insect technique (SIT) is a highly effective biologically-based method for the suppression of many insect pest populations. SIT efficacy could be improved by methods of male sterilization that avoid the use of irradiation that can result in diminished fitness and ...
Development and evaluation of pupal color-based genetic sexing strains in Anastrepha obliqua
Tags: Genetic biocontrol, North America, Pest management, Sterile insect technique (SIT)Daisy P. Cárdenas-Enríquez, Víctor García-Martínez, Jorge Ibáñez-Palacios, et al., Insect Science, 2025.
Anastrepha obliqua, a neotropical pest widely distributed in the Americas, attacks mango and other tropical fruits. In Mexico, it is controlled through integrated pest management, using the Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) as a main component. The applicability of SIT is ...
Application of Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) for Aedes albopictus (Skuse, 1895) in Sri Lanka: Dose optimization, mating competitiveness and release ratios
Tags: Aedes, Asia, Irradiation method, Sterile insect technique (SIT), Vector controlHarishchandra J, Abeyewickreme W, Premaratne R, Hapugoda M, PLoS One, 20. 2025.
Sri Lanka has experienced severe dengue epidemics in recent years, despite the extensive vector control measures taken. Therefore, it is necessary to find sustainable vector control strategies against dengue. Novel vector control tools need to be tested for the feasibility of ...

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