Keywords: Population modification/replacement
Exploiting Wolbachia as a Tool for Mosquito-Borne Disease Control: Pursuing Efficacy, Safety, and Sustainability
Tags: Arbovirus, Cytoplasmic incompatibility, Population modification/replacement, Stakeholder engagement, Vector control, WolbachiaMoretti, R., Lim, J. T., Ferreira, A. G. A., et al, Pathogens, 14:285. 2025.
Despite the application of control measures, mosquito-borne diseases continue to pose a serious threat to human health. In this context, exploiting Wolbachia, a common symbiotic bacterium in insects, may offer effective solutions to suppress vectors or reduce their competence in ...
Wolbachia-based mosquito control: Environmental perspectives on population suppression and replacement strategies
Tags: Ecology, Modeling, Population modification/replacement, Population suppression, WolbachiaBhattacharyya, J., Roelke, D.L., Acta Tropica, 262. 2025.
Mosquito-borne diseases pose a significant threat to global health, and traditional mosquito control methods often fall short of effectiveness. A promising alternative is the biological control strategy of transinfecting mosquitoes with Wolbachia, a bacterium capable of ...
Wolbachia-based mosquito control: Environmental perspectives on population suppression and replacement strategies
Tags: Ecology, Modeling, Population modification/replacement, Population suppression, WolbachiaJoydeb Bhattacharyya, Daniel L. Roelke, Acta Tropica, 262. 2025.
Mosquito-borne diseases pose a significant threat to global health, and traditional mosquito control methods often fall short of effectiveness. A promising alternative is the biological control strategy of transinfecting mosquitoes with Wolbachia, a bacterium capable of ...
How genetically engineered mice could stop the spread of Lyme disease
Tags: Genetic biocontrol, North America, Population modification/replacement, RodentsCristela Guerra and Stephanie Brown, WBUR Radio Boston, 2024.
New England has some of the highest rates of Lyme disease in the country. MIT researchers are trying to fight the disease in a project that involves releasing hundreds of thousands of engineered mice onto the shores of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard. On Radio Boston, Kevin ...
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 ...
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 ...
A model-informed target product profile for population modification gene drives for malaria control
Tags: Africa, Gene drive, Malaria, Population modification/replacementAgastya Mondal, Héctor M. Sánchez C., John M. Marshall, medRxiv, 2024.
As reductions in malaria transmission in sub-Saharan Africa stagnate, gene drive-modified mosquitoes represent one of the most promising novel tools for continued disease control. In order to advance from the laboratory to the field, gene drives will be assessed against target ...
Advancements and Future Prospects of CRISPR-Cas-Based Population Replacement Strategies in Insect Pest Management
Tags: CRISPR, Gene drive, Pest management, Population modification/replacementZhao Y, Li L, Wei L, Wang Y, Han Z., Insects, 15. 2024.
Many insects are categorized as agricultural pests due to their ability to transmit diseases and damage crops, which results in significant economic losses. Scientists have proposed two main pest control strategies: population suppression, aimed at reducing the size or ...
Curing mosquitoes with genetic approaches for malaria control
Tags: Anopheles, Gene editing, Malaria, Population modification/replacementMary Kefi, Victor Cardoso-Jaime, Sally A. Saab, George Dimopoulos, Trends in Parasitology, 2024.
Malaria remains a persistent global public health challenge because of the limitations of current prevention tools. The use of transgenic mosquitoes incapable of transmitting malaria, in conjunction with existing methods, holds promise for achieving elimination of malaria and ...
Introduction of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes carrying wAlbB Wolbachia sharply decreases dengue incidence in disease hotspots
Tags: Aedes, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaAA Hoffmann, NW Ahmad, WM Keong, CY Ling, NA Ahmad, N. Golding, N. Tierney, J. Jelip, PW Putit, N Mohktar, SS Sandhu, LS Ming, et al., iScience, 2024.
Partial replacement of resident Aedes aegypti mosquitoes with introduced mosquitoes carrying certain strains of inherited Wolbachia symbionts can result in transmission blocking of dengue and other viruses of public health importance. Wolbachia strain wAlbB is an effective ...
Rapid turnover of pathogen-blocking Wolbachia and their incompatibility loci
Tags: Aedes, Biological control, Evolution, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaShropshire JD, Conner WR, Vanderpool D, Hoffmann AA, Turelli M, Cooper BS., bioRxiv, 2023.
At least half of all insect species carry maternally inherited Wolbachia alphaproteobacteria, making Wolbachia the most common endosymbionts in nature. Wolbachia spread to high frequencies is often due to cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI), a Wolbachia -induced sperm modification ...
A homing rescue gene drive with multiplexed gRNAs reaches high frequency in cage populations but generates functional resistance
Tags: CRISPR, Gene drive, Other arthropods, Population modification/replacement, Replicator/site directed nuclease, Synthetic biologyJingheng Chen, Shibo Hou, Ruobing Feng, Xuejiao Xu, Nan Liang, Jackson Champer, bioRxiv, 2023.
CRISPR homing gene drive is a potent technology with considerable potential for managing populations of medically and agriculturally significant insects. It induces a bias in the inheritance of the drive allele in progeny, rapidly spreading desired genes throughout the ...
Manipulating the Destiny of Wild Populations Using CRISPR
Tags: CRISPR, Gene drive, Genetic biocontrol, Population modification/replacement, Replicator/site directed nucleaseRaban R, Marshall JM, Hay BA, Akbari OS., Annual Reviews, 57:361-390. 2023.
Genetic biocontrol aims to suppress or modify populations of species to protect public health, agriculture, and biodiversity. Advancements in genome engineering technologies have fueled a surge in research in this field, with one gene editing technology, CRISPR, leading the ...
Measuring Host Fitness Effects and Transmission of Wolbachia Strains in Aedes aegypti Mosquitoes
Tags: Population modification/replacement, Population suppression, WolbachiaRoss, P.A., Methods in Molecular Biology, 2739. 2023.
Lines of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes infected with heritable Wolbachia bacteria are being developed and released for arbovirus control. Coordinated releases of lab-reared Wolbachia mosquitoes have reduced local disease incidence by spreading virus-blocking Wolbachia strains and by ...
Procedures for the Detection of Wolbachia-Conferred Antiviral Protection in Drosophila melanogaster
Tags: Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaChrostek, E., Methods in Molecular Biology, 2739. 2023.
Spread of Wolbachia infections in host populations may be enhanced by Wolbachia-conferred protection from viral pathogens. Wolbachia-infected Drosophila melanogaster survive the pathogenic effects of positive-sense single-stranded RNA virus infections at a higher rate than 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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
Dengue rates drop after release of modified mosquitoes in Colombia
Tags: Dengue, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaM. Lenharo, Nature, 2023.
Three cities in Colombia saw a dramatic fall in the incidence of dengue in the years following the introduction of mosquitoes carrying Wolbachia, a bacterium that prevents the insect from transmitting viruses. In neighbourhoods where the Wolbachia mosquitoes were well ...
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 ...
Wolbachia enhances the survival ofDrosophila infected with fungal pathogens
Tags: Fruit fly, Mosquitoes, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaJ. Perlmutter, I., A. Atadurdyyeva, M. Schedl, E. and R. Unckless, L., bioRxiv, 2023.09.30.560320. 2023.
Wolbachia bacteria of arthropods are at the forefront of basic and translational research on multipartite host-symbiont-pathogen interactions. These microbes are vertically inherited from mother to offspring via the cytoplasm. They are the most widespread endosymbionts on the ...
Wolbachia interferes with Zika virus replication by hijacking cholesterol metabolism in mosquito cells
Tags: Arbovirus, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaB. Edwards, E. A.-O. X. Ghedin and D. A.-O. Voronin, Microbiology Spectrum, 2023.
Zika virus is a member of the arbovirus Flaviviridae family transmitted by Aedes mosquitos and it is associated with microcephaly in infants born to infected mothers. Wolbachia is an intracellular gram-negative alpha-proteobacteria that infects many species of arthropods, ...
The double-edged sword effect of expanding Wolbachia deployment in dengue endemic settings
Tags: Aedes, Dengue, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaM. G. Pavan, G. A. Garcia, M. R. David and R. Maciel-de-Freitas, The Lancet Regional Health - Americas, 27:100610. 2023.
We can use Brazil as a showcase to foresee and avoid a double-edged sword effect associated with Wolbachia releases. Insecticide resistance of native Ae. aegypti populations is spread worldwide (http://aedes.irmapper.com), and positive results should boost Wolbachia deployment in ...
Wolbachia-mediated resistance to Zika virus infection in Aedes aegypti is dominated by diverse transcriptional regulation and weak evolutionary pressures
Tags: Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaE. C. Boehm, A. S. Jaeger, H. J. Ries, D. Castañeda, A. M. Weiler, C. C. Valencia, J. Weger-Lucarelli, G. D. Ebel, S. L. O’Connor, T. C. Friedrich, M. Zamanian and M. T. Aliota, PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, 17:e0011674. 2023.
A promising candidate for arbovirus control and prevention relies on replacing arbovirus-susceptible Aedes aegypti populations with mosquitoes that have been colonized by the intracellular bacterium Wolbachia and thus have a reduced capacity to transmit arboviruses. This reduced ...
Unleashing a New Weapon on the Mosquito: A Mosquito
Tags: Aedes, Dengue, Genetically modified mosquitoes, Population modification/replacement, Population suppression, WolbachiaS. Nolen and E. Lutz, New York Times, 2023.
Five decades ago, entomologists confronting the many kinds of suffering that mosquitoes inflict on humans began to consider a new idea: What if, instead of killing the mosquitoes (a losing proposition in most places), you could disarm them? Even if you couldn’t keep them from ...
The Gamble: Can Genetically Modified Mosquitoes End Disease?
Tags: Anopheles, Gene drive, Gene drive synthetic, Genetically modified mosquitoes, Malaria, Population modification/replacementS. Nolen, New York Times, 2023.
The malaria situation in São Tomé and Príncipe, an African island nation with a population of 200,000, epitomizes the current challenge in the global struggle against the disease. The country is among the world’s least developed, and it has depended on foreign aid to fight ...
Using Wolbachia to control rice planthopper populations: progress and challenges
Tags: Agriculture, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaY. 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
Tags: Anopheles, Malaria, Population modification/replacement, Population suppressionPescod, 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
Tags: Aedes, Genetically modified mosquitoes, Population modification/replacementReitmayer, 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 ...
Quantifying the impact of Wolbachia releases on dengue infection in Townsville, Australia
Tags: Dengue, Oceania, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaOgunlade, 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 ...
Molecular Evidence of Wolbachia Species in Wild-Caught Aedes albopictus and Aedes aegypti Mosquitoes in Four States of Northeast India
Tags: Aedes, Incompatible insect technique, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaVinayagam, 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
Tags: Aedes, Arbovirus, Dengue, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaM. 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 ...
Does ignoring transmission dynamics lead to underestimation of the impact of interventions against mosquito-borne disease?
Tags: Dengue, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaS. Cavany, J. Huber, H. , A. Wieler, Q. M. Tran, M. Alkuzweny, M. Elliott, G. España, S. Moore, M. and T. A. Perkins, BMJ Global Health, 8:e012169. 2023.
New vector-control technologies to fight mosquito-borne diseases are urgently needed, the adoption of which depends on efficacy estimates from large-scale cluster-randomised trials (CRTs). The release of Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes is one promising strategy to curb dengue virus ...
Wolbachia wMel strain-mediated effects on dengue virus vertical transmission from Aedes aegypti to their offspring
Tags: Aedes, Dengue, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaK. Duong Thi Hue, D. da Silva Goncalves, V. Tran Thuy, L. Thi Vo, D. Le Thi, N. Vu Tuyet, G. Nguyen Thi, T. Huynh Thi Xuan, N. Nguyen Minh, P. Nguyen Thanh, S. Yacoub and C. P. Simmons, Parasites and Vectors, 16:308. 2023.
Background Dengue virus serotypes (DENV-1 to -4) can be transmitted vertically in Aedes aegpti mosquitoes. Whether infection with the wMel strain of the endosymbiont Wolbachia can reduce the incidence of vertical transmission of DENV from infected females to their offspring is ...
The impact of predators of mosquito larvae on Wolbachia spreading dynamics
Tags: Aedes, Dengue, Genetic biocontrol, Modeling, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaZ. Zhu, Y. Hui and L. Hu, Journal of Biological Dynamics, 17:2249024. 2023.
Dengue fever creates more than 390 million cases worldwide yearly. The most effective way to deal with this mosquito-borne disease is to control the vectors. In this work we consider two weapons, the endosymbiotic bacteria Wolbachia and predators of mosquito larvae, for combating ...
wMel Wolbachia alters female post-mating behaviors and physiology in the dengue vector mosquito Aedes aegypti
Tags: Aedes, Arbovirus, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaJ. Osorio, S. Villa-Arias, C. Camargo, L. F. Ramírez-Sánchez, L. M. Barrientos, C. Bedoya, G. Rúa-Uribe, S. Dorus, C. Alfonso-Parra and F. W. Avila, Communications Biology, 6:865. 2023.
Globally invasive Aedes aegypti disseminate numerous arboviruses that impact human health. One promising method to control Ae. aegypti populations is transinfection with Wolbachia pipientis, which naturally infects ~40–52% of insects but not Ae. aegypti. Transinfection of Ae. ...
Modeling shows emerging mosquito control approach might be largely resistant to warming temperatures
Tags: Aedes, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaB. Yirka, Phys Org, 2023.
A team of epidemiologists and engineers at the University of California, working with a colleague from QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, in Australia, has found via modeling that the use of the Wolbachia approach to slowing the spread of mosquito-borne diseases (MBDs) is ...
Scientists are releasing disease-resistant mosquitoes. But heat waves could kill them.
Tags: Aedes, Dengue, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaC. Harvey, Politico, 2023.
A new study, published Thursday in the journal Nature Climate Change, suggests that the disease-quashing bugs will likely survive for at least the next couple of decades. Their fate is less certain further into the future. The study focuses on a special insect-borne bacterium ...
wMel replacement of dengue-competent mosquitoes is robust to near-term change
Tags: Aedes, Dengue, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaV. N. Vásquez, L. M. Kueppers, G. Rašić and J. M. Marshall, Nature Climate Change, 13:848-855. 2023.
Rising temperatures are impacting the range and prevalence of mosquito-borne diseases. A promising biocontrol technology replaces wild mosquitoes with those carrying the virus-blocking Wolbachia bacterium. Because the most widely used strain, wMel, is adversely affected by heat ...
Susceptibility of Wolbachia mosquito control to temperature shifts
Tags: Aedes, Dengue, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaE. P. Caragata, Nature Climate Change, 13:767-768. 2023.
Vásquez and colleagues consider the potential impacts of increasing and variable temperatures on Wolbachia-based population-replacement interventions. Previous laboratory experiments have highlighted the temperature-sensitive nature of Wolbachia, with high average daily ...
Lab-grown special mosquitoes can be the secret weapon to fight dengue
Tags: Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaM. Jain, MONGABAY, 2023.
The World Mosquito Program infects the Aedes aegypti, which carries the dengue virus, with a bacteria called Wolbachia, which reduces the transmission of dengue. Dengue infections are rapidly increasing because of factors like urbanisation and climate change. The World Health ...
Mosquitoes spread malaria. These researchers want them to fight it instead
Tags: Anopheles, Gene drive, Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Population modification/replacementG. Brumfiel, NPR, 2023.
Mosquitoes carry malaria, which kills hundreds of thousands of people each year. Now some researchers are trying to use genetic engineering to make the pesky insects into allies in the fight against the disease. The approach is a radical departure from traditional ways of ...
Mosquito-friendly gene drive may lead to a malaria-free future
Tags: Gene drive, Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Population modification/replacementAnonymous, LIFE TECHNOLOGY, 2023.
A gene drive is a genetic mechanism that allows a particular gene to spread rapidly through a population. In the case of malaria, scientists are working on developing a gene drive that would make mosquitoes resistant to the parasite that causes the disease. This would reduce the ...
Dual effector population modification gene-drive strains of the African malaria mosquitoes, Anopheles gambiae and Anopheles coluzzii
Tags: Anopheles, Gene drive, Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Population modification/replacementR. Carballar-Lejarazú, Y. Dong, T. B. Pham, T. Tushar, R. M. Corder, A. Mondal, H. M. Sánchez C, H.-F. Lee, J. M. Marshall, G. Dimopoulos and A. A. James, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120:e2221118120. 2023.
Proposed genetic approaches for reducing human malaria include population modification, which introduces genes into vector mosquitoes to reduce or prevent parasite transmission. We demonstrate the potential of Cas9/guide RNA (gRNA)?based gene-drive systems linked to dual ...
Mosquitoes made immune to malaria could help stamp out the disease
Tags: Anopheles, Gene drive, Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Population modification/replacementC. Wilson, NewScientist, 2023.
Mosquitoes have been gene edited so they are immune to the parasites that cause malaria. If released into the wild, the genetic modification should spread through a population of mosquitoes because it contains a sequence known as a “gene drive”, which means all the modified ...
The cellular lives of Wolbachia
Tags: Cytoplasmic incompatibility, Population modification/replacement, Population suppression, WolbachiaJ. Porter and W. Sullivan, Nature Reviews Microbiology, 2023.
Wolbachia are successful Gram-negative bacterial endosymbionts, globally infecting a large fraction of arthropod species and filarial nematodes. Efficient vertical transmission, the capacity for horizontal transmission, manipulation of host reproduction and enhancement of host ...
Threshold dynamics of a stochastic mathematical model for Wolbachia infections
Tags: Modeling, Population modification/replacement, Population suppression, WolbachiaJ. Yang, Z. Chen, Y. Tan, Z. Liu and R. A. Cheke, Journal of Biological Dynamics, 17:2231967. 2023.
A stochastic mathematical model is proposed to study how environmental heterogeneity and the augmentation of mosquitoes with Wolbachia bacteria affect the outcomes of dengue disease. The existence and uniqueness of the positive solutions of the system are studied. Then the ...
MGSurvE: A framework to optimize trap placement for genetic surveillance of mosquito population
Tags: Dengue, Field trials, Gene drive, Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Modeling, Population modification/replacement, Population suppressionC. H. Sánchez, D. L. Smith and J. M. Marshall, bioRxiv, 2023.
Genetic surveillance of mosquito populations is becoming increasingly relevant as genetics-based mosquito control strategies advance from laboratory to field testing. Especially applicable are mosquito gene drive projects, the potential scale of which leads monitoring to be a ...
Generation game: gene-edited mosquitos to fight malaria
Tags: Gene drive, Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Mosquitoes, Population modification/replacement, Population suppressionJ. Opara, Sci Dev Net, 2023.
Population-level changes in the genetic make-up of one of the world’s deadliest animals could provide a key in the fight against malaria, proponents of a radical new technology argue. So-called gene drive technology, where genetic changes are passed down through generations, ...
Wolbachia -induced inhibition of O’nyong nyong virus in Anopheles mosquitoes is mediated by Toll signaling and modulated by cholesterol
Tags: Anopheles, Arbovirus, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaS. Pujhari, G. L. Hughes, N. Pakpour, Y. Suzuki and J. L. Rasgon, bioRxiv, 10.1101/2023.05.31.543096. 2023.
Enhanced host immunity and competition for metabolic resources are two main competing hypotheses for the mechanism of Wolbachia -mediated pathogen inhibition in arthropods. Using an Anopheles mosquito - somatic Wolbachia infection - O'nyong nyong virus (ONNV) model, we ...
An economic evaluation of Wolbachia deployments for dengue control in Vietnam
Tags: Dengue, Policy, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaH. C. Turner, D. L. Quyen, R. Dias, P. T. Huong, C. P. Simmons and K. L. Anders, PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, 17:e0011356. 2023.
INTRODUCTION: Dengue is a major public health challenge and a growing problem due to climate change. The release of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes infected with the intracellular bacterium Wolbachia is a novel form of vector control against dengue. However, there remains a need to ...
Mosquito gene targeted RNAi studies for vector control
Tags: Genetic biocontrol, Genetic engineering, Mosquitoes, Population modification/replacement, Population suppressionM. Yadav, N. Dahiya and N. Sehrawat, Functional and Integrative Genomics, 23:180. 2023.
Vector-borne diseases are serious public health concern. Mosquito is one of the major vectors responsible for the transmission of a number of diseases like malaria, Zika, chikungunya, dengue, West Nile fever, Japanese encephalitis, St. Louis encephalitis, and yellow fever. ...
The boundary problem: Defining and delineating the community in field trials with gene drive organisms
Tags: Ethics, Gene drive, Gene editing, Malaria, Mosquitoes, Population modification/replacement, Stakeholder engagementN. de Graeff, I. Pirson, R. van der Graaf, A. L. Bredenoord and K. R. Jongsma, Bioethics, 2023.
Despite widespread and worldwide efforts to eradicate vector-borne diseases such as malaria, these diseases continue to have an enormous negative impact on public health. For this reason, scientists are working on novel control strategies, such as gene drive technologies (GDTs). ...
Mathematical modeling of the performance of wild and transgenic mosquitoes in malaria transmission
Tags: Gene drive, Gene drive synthetic, Genetic biocontrol, Modeling, Population modification/replacementA. P. Wyse, A. J. B. dos Santos, J. D. Azevedo, A. C. de Meneses and V. M. D. Santos, Plos One, 18:23. 2023.
A mathematical model that simulates malaria transmission under the influence of transgenic mosquitoes refractory to malaria is presented in this paper. The zygosity of transgenic mosquitoes is taken into account and, consequently, the total population of mosquitoes is comprised ...
Massive mosquito factory in Brazil aims to halt dengue
Tags: Aedes, Dengue, Population modification/replacement, South/Central America, WolbachiaM. Lenharo, Nature, 2023.
The non-profit World Mosquito Program (WMP) has announced that it will release modified mosquitoes in many of Brazil’s urban areas over the next 10 years, with the aim of protecting up to 70 million people from diseases such as dengue. Researchers have tested the release of ...
Modelling the effect of migration on the localisation and spread of a gene drive
Tags: Gene drive, Gene drive synthetic, Modeling, Population modification/replacement, Population suppression, Self limiting, Self sustainingC. Benjamin James and F.-L. Alexandre Jules Hen, bioRxiv, 2023.04.02.535303. 2023.
Gene drives have the potential to address pressing ecological issues. Through the super-Mendelian inheritance of a gene drive, a trait can be spread through a population even in spite of a fitness cost. This ability to spread is both its greatest quality and detractor. We may not ...
First transgenic mosquito made in Africa by Transmission Zero
Tags: Anopheles, Gene drive, Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Population modification/replacementH. Dunning, Imperial College London, 2023.
Transmission Zero, a global scientific programme led by scientists at Imperial College London and the Ifakara Health Institute (IHI) of Tanzania, in partnership with the Tanzanian National Institute of Medical Research (NIMR), announces the generation of the first transgenic ...
The Promise and Challenge of Genetic Biocontrol Approaches for Malaria Elimination
Tags: Gene drive, Gene drive synthetic, Genetic biocontrol, Malaria, Population modification/replacement, Population suppressionS. James and M. Santos, Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease, 2023.
Malaria remains an ongoing public health challenge, with over 600,000 deaths in 2021, of which approximately 96% occurred in Africa. Despite concerted efforts, the goal of global malaria elimination has stalled in recent years. This has resulted in widespread calls for new ...
Enhancing the scalability of Wolbachia-based vector-borne disease management: time and temperature limits for storage and transport of Wolbachia-infected Aedes aegypti eggs for field releases
Tags: Aedes, Genetic biocontrol, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaM. J. Allman, Y. H. Lin, D. A. Joubert, J. Addley-Cook, M. C. Mejía-Torres, C. P. Simmons, H. A. Flores and J. E. Fraser, Parasit Vectors, 16:108. 2023.
BACKGROUND: Introgression of the bacterial endosymbiont Wolbachia into Aedes aegypti populations is a biocontrol approach being used to reduce arbovirus transmission. This requires mass release of Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes. While releases have been conducted using a variety ...
Genome evolution of dengue virus serotype 1 under selection by Wolbachia pipientis in Aedes aegypti mosquitoes
Tags: Aedes, Dengue, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaD. Thi Hue Kien, K. Edenborough, D. da Silva Goncalves, T. Thuy Vi, E. Casagrande, H. Thi Le Duyen, V. Thi Long, L. Thi Dui, V. Thi Tuyet Nhu, N. Thi Giang, H. Thi Xuan Trang, E. Lee, I. a. Donovan-Banfield, H. Thi Thuy Van, N. Minh Nguyet, N. Thanh Phong, Virus Evolution, 9:vead016. 2023.
The introgression of antiviral strains of Wolbachia into Aedes aegypti mosquito populations is a public health intervention for the control of dengue. Plausibly, dengue virus (DENV) could evolve to bypass the antiviral effects of Wolbachia and undermine this approach. Here, we ...
Hybrid incompatibilities in the anopheles gambiae species complex
Tags: Anopheles, Gene drive, Gene drive synthetic, Genetic incompatibilities, Malaria, Modeling, Population modification/replacement, Population suppressionA. Kriezis, Imperial College London, 2023.
Malaria is an infectious disease caused by parasites of the genus Plasmodium which is responsible for approximately 400,000 deaths annually, primarily in sub-Saharan Africa. Malaria is transmitted by mosquitoes belonging to the Anopheles gambiae species complex. While progress ...
Gene Drive Technology With Agricultural Application Potential
Tags: Agriculture, Gene drive, Gene drive synthetic, Population modification/replacement, Population suppressionR. Carmeli-Peslak, SeedWorld, 2023.
Gene drive technology, a genetic phenomenon that occurs in nature, causes a trait to spread in species through sexual reproduction over many generations. The inheritance rate is higher than the Mendelian rate which is 50%. Gene drives have been used for public health and ...
Biopolitik: The Promise of Gene Drive
Tags: Gene drive, Gene drive synthetic, Population modification/replacement, Population suppressionS. Todi, Technopolitik, 2023.
Gene drives are genetic elements of an organism that are transmitted to progeny at higher than mendelian frequencies (>50%). Gene editing techniques such as CRISPR–Cas9 have made gene drives extremely efficient in laboratory settings and have shown the potential to reduce the ...
Investigating Wolbachia symbiont-mediated host protection against a bacterial pathogen using a natural Wolbachia nuclear insert
Tags: Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaC. Prigot-Maurice, B. Lheraud, S. Guéritault, S. Beltran-Bech, R. Cordaux, J. Peccoud and C. Braquart-Varnier, Journal of Invertebrate Pathology, 197:107893. 2023.
Wolbachia bacterial endosymbionts provide protection against pathogens in various arthropod species but the underlying mechanisms remain misunderstood. By using a natural Wolbachia nuclear insert (f-element) in the isopod Armadillidium vulgare, we explored whether Wolbachia ...
A Zika virus-responsive sensor-effector system in Aedes aegypti
Tags: Aedes, Genetic biocontrol, Genetically modified mosquitoes, Population modification/replacement, Population suppressionS. Basu, C. M. Reitmayer, S. Lumley, B. Atkinson, M. L. Schade-Weskott, S. Rooney, W. Larner, E. E. Montiel, R. Gutierrez-Lopez, E. Levitt, H. M. Munyanduki, A. M. E. Elrefaey, A. T. Clarke, S. Koit, E. Zusinaite, R. Fragkoudis, A. Merits and L. Alphey, bioRxiv, 2023.02.06.527261. 2023.
Zika virus (ZIKV) is a recently re-emerged flavivirus transmitted primarily through the bite of an infected mosquito, Aedes aegypti being the main vector. ZIKV infection is associated with a range of adverse effects; infection during pregnancy can lead to foetal abnormalities, ...
Ethical dilemma: Should we get rid of mosquitoes?
Tags: Ethics, Gene drive, Governance, Population modification/replacement, Population suppression, Target malariaTalya Hackett, TED-Ed, 2023.
Mosquitoes are responsible for more human deaths every year than any other animal, but very few of the 3,500 mosquito species actually transmit deadly diseases to humans. Scientists have been conducting experiments using engineered technologies called gene drives that could ...
Engineered Antiviral Sensor Targets Infected Mosquitoes
Tags: Aedes, Arbovirus, CRISPR, Dengue, Genetic biocontrol, Population modification/replacementE. Dalla Benetta, A. J. Lopez-Denman, H.-H. Li, R. A. Masri, D. J. Brogan, M. Bui, T. Yang, M. Li, M. Dunn, M. J. Klein, S. Jackson, K. Catalan, K. R. Blasdell, P. Tng, I. Antoshechkin, L. S. Alphey, P. N. Paradkar and O. Akbari, bioRxiv, 2023.01.27.525922. 2023.
Escalating vector disease burdens pose significant global health risks, so innovative tools for targeting mosquitoes are critical. We engineered an antiviral strategy termed REAPER (vRNA Expression Activates Poisonous Effector Ribonuclease) that leverages the programmable ...
Impact of randomised wmel Wolbachia deployments on notified dengue cases and insecticide fogging for dengue control in Yogyakarta City
Tags: Aedes, Asia, Dengue, Field trials, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaC. Indriani, S. K. Tanamas, U. Khasanah, M. R. Ansari, Rubangi, W. Tantowijoyo, R. A. Ahmad, S. M. Dufault, N. P. Jewell, A. Utarini, C. P. Simmons and K. L. Anders, Glob Health Action, 16:2166650. 2023.
BACKGROUND: Releases of Wolbachia (wMel)-infected Aedes aegypti mosquitoes significantly reduced the incidence of virologically confirmed dengue in a previous cluster randomised trial in Yogyakarta City, Indonesia. Following the trial, wMel releases were extended to the untreated ...
Dynamics of an impulsive reaction-diffusion mosquitoes model with multiple control measures
Tags: Aedes, Modeling, Population modification/replacement, Population suppression, WolbachiaY. Li, H. Zhao and K. Wang, Mathematical Biosciences and Engineering, 20:775-806. 2023.
It is well-known that mosquito control is one of the effective methods to reduce and prevent the transmission of mosquito-borne diseases. In this paper, we formulate a reaction-diffusion impulsive hybrid model incorporating Wolbachia, impulsively spraying of insecticides, spatial ...
Gene Drives Could Fight Malaria and Other Global Killers but Might Have Unintended Consequences
Tags: Anopheles, Gene drive, Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Population modification/replacement, Population suppressionM. Cobb, Scientific American, 2023.
Every year more than 600,000 people die from mosquito-transmitted malaria, most of them children under age five. Some insects that are disease vectors, such as mosquitoes, are currently expanding their range around the world, bringing new threats. Genetic engineering can fix this ...
Tolerance-conferring defensive symbionts and the evolution of parasite virulence
Tags: Genetic biocontrol, Modeling, Other Symbionts, Population modification/replacementC. A. Smith and B. Ashby, bioRxiv, 2022.
Defensive symbionts in the host microbiome can confer protection from infection or reduce the harms of being infected by a parasite. Defensive symbionts are therefore promising agents of biocontrol that could be used to control or ameliorate the impact of infectious diseases. ...
GeneConvene Global Collaborative Webinar Series | Wolbachia Biology, Mechanisms and Applications 2022
Tags: Aedes, Cytoplasmic incompatibility, Dengue, Genetic biocontrol, Population modification/replacement, Population suppression, Webinar, WolbachiaDavid O'Brochta, GeneConvene Global Collaborative, 2022.
Intracellular and extracellular symbiotic/commensal bacteria have enormous potential when manipulated and deployed appropriately to serve as agents of control of insects and the pathogens they transmit. Wolbachia, an intracellular bacteria, is a well studied system and one that ...
Wolbachia wAlbB inhibit dengue and Zika infection in the mosquito Aedes aegypti with an Australian background
Tags: Aedes, Dengue, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaL. E. Hugo, G. Rašić, A. J. Maynard, L. Ambrose, C. Liddington, C. J. E. Thomas, N. S. Nath, M. Graham, C. Winterford, B. M. C. R. Wimalasiri-Yapa, Z. Xi, N. W. Beebe and G. J. Devine, PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, 16:e0010786. 2022.
Biological control of mosquito vectors using the endosymbiotic bacteria Wolbachia is an emerging strategy for the management of human arboviral diseases. We recently described the development of a strain of Aedes aegypti infected with the Wolbachia strain wAlbB (referred to as ...
Risk Assessment on the Release of Wolbachia-Infected Aedes aegypti in Yogyakarta, Indonesia
Tags: Aedes, Dengue, Policy, Population modification/replacement, Risk assessment, WolbachiaD. Buchori, A. Mawan, I. Nurhayati, A. Aryati, H. Kusnanto and U. K. Hadi, Insects, 13. 2022.
Wolbachia-infected Aedes aegypti is the latest technology that was developed to eliminate dengue fever. The Ministry of Research and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia (Kemenristekdikti) established an expert group to identify future potential risks that may occur over a ...
Wolbachia-Virus interactions and arbovirus control through population replacement in mosquitoes
Tags: Aedes, Arbovirus, Cytoplasmic incompatibility, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaT. H. Ant, M. V. Mancini, C. J. McNamara, S. M. Rainey and S. P. Sinkins, Pathogens and Global Health, 2022.
Following transfer into the primary arbovirus vector Aedes aegypti, several strains of the intracellular bacterium Wolbachia have been shown to inhibit the transmission of dengue, Zika, and chikungunya viruses, important human pathogens that cause significant morbidity and ...
Research: Scientists Modify Mosquitoes That Can’t Spread Malaria
Tags: Anopheles, Gene drive, Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Population modification/replacementN. Kharbanda, Onlymyhealth, 2022.
According to a research, scientists have found a way to genetically engineer mosquitoes with the capability to slow down the multiplication of malaria-causing parasites in their gut. This is an advance study, that can help in preventing the infecting of the disease in humans. The ...
Explained: How Scientists Are Genetically modifying Mosquitoes To Reduce Malaria
Tags: Anopheles, Gene drive, Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Population modification/replacementAnonymous, Outlook, 2022.
he Delhi High Court on Friday asked the state government to inform it within two weeks of the proposal of increasing the fine amount in mosquito breeding cases. The court last year took suo moto cognizance of the issue of large-scale mosquito breeding in the city, resulting in ...
Explained: How scientists engineered mosquitoes that cannot spread malaria
Tags: Gene drive, Gene drive synthetic, Genetically modified mosquitoes, Malaria, Population modification/replacementFP Explainers, Firstpost, 2022.
The world of science is reaching new heights. Scientists have now developed mosquitoes that will bite you but not cause malaria. The study was conducted by a team of researchers called Transmission: Zero at the Imperial College of London. The results of the research were ...
Fitness costs of Wolbachia shift in locally-adapted Aedes aegypti mosquitoes
Tags: Aedes, Dengue, Mosquito husbandry, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaP. A. Ross and A. A. Hoffmann, Environmental Microbiology, 2022.
Aedes aegypti mosquito eggs can remain quiescent for many months before hatching, allowing populations to persist through unfavorable conditions. Aedes aegypti infected with the Wolbachia strain wMel have been released in tropical and subtropical regions for dengue control. wMel ...
Malaria-free mosquito engineered by scientists
Tags: Africa, Anopheles, Gene drive, Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Population modification/replacementGNA, MODERN GHANA, 2022.
Scientists have genetically modified the main malaria-carrying species of mosquito in sub-SaharanAfrica to slow the growth of malaria-causing parasites in their gut, preventing transmission of thedisease to humans. When the Anopheles gambiae takes a blood meal, it produces two ...
Scientists stunt parasite growth to tackle malaria
Tags: Anopheles, Gene drive, Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Population modification/replacementRSS24.news, RSS24.NEWS, 2022.
Loss of life, loss of livlihoods and homelessness have already afflicted these flood marooned refugees in Pakistan. Now these living conditions means they also face sickness and and without protection malaria is a major threat. Health agencies try to protect people against ...
Scientists are manipulating the DNA of mosquitoes to fight the spread of malaria
Tags: Anopheles, Gene drive, Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Population modification/replacementR. Min, EURONEWS.NEXT, 2022.
Scientists say they have managed to genetically modify mosquitoes so that they are unable to spread malaria, a disease that kills well over half a million people each year. The changes cause mosquitoes to live shorter lives, while the parasites inside them, which cause the fatal ...
Externalities modulate the effectiveness of the Wolbachia release programme
Tags: Aedes, Arbovirus, Dengue, Modeling, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaE. E. Ooi and A. Wilder-Smith, The Lancet Infectious Diseases, 2022.
Despite the remarkable outcome in Yogyakarta, the wMel approach also has some challenges. In particular, the extent to which ecological, weather, and other external factors influence the dissemination and establishment of wMel in complex urban environments remains unclear. ...
Estimating the effect of the wMel release programme on the incidence of dengue and chikungunya in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: a spatiotemporal modelling study
Tags: Aedes, Cytoplasmic incompatibility, Dengue, Modeling, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaG. Ribeiro dos Santos, B. Durovni, V. Saraceni, T. I. Souza Riback, S. B. Pinto, K. L. Anders, et al., The Lancet Infectious Diseases, 2022.
Summary Background Introgression of genetic material from species of the insect bacteria Wolbachia into populations of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes has been shown in randomised and non-randomised trials to reduce the incidence of dengue; however, evidence for the real-world ...
Scientists engineer mosquitoes that cannot spread malaria
Tags: Anopheles, Gene drive, Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Population modification/replacementJ. Dalton, Independen, 2022.
Scientists have engineered mosquitoes that cannot give humans malaria, saying their work could potentially eliminate the disease. Researchers at Imperial College London genetically modified the insects so that the growth of malaria-causing parasites in their guts was slowed.
Scientists Engineer Mosquitoes That Can’t Transmit Malaria
Tags: Anopheles, Gene drive, Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Population modification/replacementC. Murez, US News, 2022.
The fight against malaria could hinge on genetically engineered mosquitoes that have something called "gene drive."Researchers from the Transmission: Zero team at Imperial College London report that they have engineered mosquitoes that slow the growth in their gut of the ...
Mosquitoes that can’t spread malaria engineered by scientists
Tags: Anopheles, Gene drive, Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Population modification/replacement2022.
Scientists have engineered mosquitoes that slow the growth of malaria-causing parasites in their gut, preventing transmission of the disease to humans The genetic modification causes mosquitoes to produce compounds in their guts that stunt the growth of parasites, meaning they ...
Scientists engineer mosquitoes that can’t spread malaria
Tags: Anopheles, Gene drive, Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Population modification/replacementS. Varshney, Gamacher Central, 2022.
Scientists have engineered mosquitoes that slow the growth of malaria-causing parasites in their gut, preventing transmission of the disease to humans. The genetic modification causes mosquitoes to produce compounds in their guts that stunt the growth of parasites, meaning they ...
Mosquitoes with honeybee DNA could tame malaria
Tags: Anopheles, Gene drive, Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Population modification/replacementR. Blakely, The Times, 2022.
A new form of genetically engineered mosquito could reduce the spread of malaria in Africa, a study suggests. The addition of DNA from a honeybee and genetic material from the African clawed frog prompt the new mosquitoes to produce compounds to stunt the growth of the parasite ...
Genetically Engineered Mosquitoes Prevented the Growth of Malaria-causing Parasites in Their Gut
Tags: Anopheles, Gene drive, Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Population modification/replacementP. Mozter, Nature World News 2022, 2022.
Abstract: Scientists have created mosquitoes that inhibit the development of malaria-causing parasites in their stomachs, therefore decreasing disease transmission to people. The genetic change allows mosquitoes to create substances in their intestines that inhibit parasite ...
Wolbachia strain wAlbB remains stable in Aedes aegypti over 15 years but exhibits genetic background-dependent variation in virus blocking
Tags: Cytoplasmic incompatibility, Population modification/replacement, Population suppression, WolbachiaX. Liang, C. H. Tan, Q. Sun, M. Zhang, P. J. Wong, M. I. Li, et al., PNAS Nexus, 2022.
The ability of the maternally transmitted endosymbiotic bacterium Wolbachia to induce cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI) and virus blocking makes it a promising weapon for combatting mosquito-borne diseases through either suppression or replacement of wild-type populations. Recent ...
Mosquitoes are being genetically modified so they can’t spread malaria
Tags: Anopheles, Gene drive, Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Population modification/replacementM. Le Page, New Scientist, 2022.
Gene editing mosquitoes so they die before malaria parasites can develop inside them could stop the spread of the deadly parasite entirely,
Genetically-modified mosquitoes could ‘help wipe out malaria’
Tags: Anopheles, Malaria, Population modification/replacementS. Knapton, The Telegraph, 2022.
Mosquitoes that cannot spread malaria have been genetically engineered by British scientists, in a breakthrough that could help eliminate the disease. ...
Scientists engineer mosquitoes that can’t spread malaria
Tags: Anopheles, Gene drive, Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Population modification/replacementImperial College London, Phys Org, 2022.
Scientists have engineered mosquitoes that slow the growth of malaria-causing parasites in their gut, preventing transmission of the disease to humans. The genetic modification causes mosquitoes to produce compounds in their guts that stunt the growth of parasites, meaning they ...
Extreme GM “extinction technology” of gene drives presented as “natural”
Tags: Gene drive, Gene drive synthetic, Population modification/replacementGM Watch, GM Watch, 2022.
Now similar Orwellian moves are happening in the area of gene drives. A gene drive is a genetic engineering technology that forces a particular genetic modification through a population by changing the natural rules of inheritance, usually to ensure that it is increasingly – ...
An optimal control problem for dengue transmission model with Wolbachia and vaccination
Tags: Dengue, Modeling, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaJ. Zhang, L. L. Liu, Y. Z. Li and Y. Wang, Communications In Nonlinear Science and Numerical Simulation, 116. 2022.
The release of Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes into the wild mosquitoes population is an excellent biological control strategy which can be effective against mosquito-borne infections. In this work, we propose a dengue transmission model that incorporates releasing Wolbachia into ...
Call for public consultation ̶ Development of Target Product Profiles (TPPs) for Wolbachia infected Aedes aegypti population replacement intervention
Tags: Aedes, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaWorld Health Organization, WHO, 2022.
WHO aims to reduce the global burden of dengue by 25% by 2030. To reach this goal, it is imperative to provide control programmes with sustainable vector control tools. Wolbachia, a symbiotic bacterium that occurs naturally in many insects, has been successfully transferred into ...
Changing mosquito genes, spreading bacteria: Science sees success vs dengue
Tags: Aedes, Arbovirus, Dengue, Genetic biocontrol, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaC. E. Baclig, INQUIRER.NET, 2022.
Wolbachia, according to WMP, are extremely common bacteria that occur naturally in 50 percent of insect species, including mosquitoes, fruit flies, moths, dragonflies, and butterflies. Aedes aegypti or dengue-carrying mosquitoes, however, do not normally carry Wolbachia. Studies ...
Wolbachia wPip Blocks Zika Virus Transovarial Transmission in Aedes albopictus
Tags: Aedes, Arbovirus, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaY. Guo, J. Guo, Y. Li, X. Zheng and Y. Wu, Microbiol Spectrum, e0263321. 2022.
Area-wide application of Wolbachia to suppress mosquito populations and their transmitted viruses has achieved success in multiple countries. However, the mass release of Wolbachia-infected male mosquitoes involves a potential risk of accidentally releasing fertile females. In ...
Developing Wolbachia-based disease interventions for an extreme environment
Tags: Aedes, Cytoplasmic incompatibility, Genetic biocontrol, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaP. A. Ross, S. Elfekih, S. Collier, M. J. Klein, S. S. Lee, M. Dunn, S. Jackson, Y. Zhang, J. K. Axford, X. Gu, M. S. Nasar, P. N. Paradkar, E. A. Taoufik, F. M. Jiggins, A. M. Almalik, M. B. Al-Fageeh and A. A. Hoffmann, bioRxiv, 2022.07.26.501527. 2022.
Aedes aegypti mosquitoes carrying self-spreading, virus-blocking Wolbachia bacteria are being deployed to suppress dengue transmission. However, there are challenges in applying this technology in extreme environments. We introduced two Wolbachia strains into Ae. aegypti from ...
Population replacement gene drive characteristics for malaria elimination in a range of seasonal transmission settings: a modelling study
Tags: Africa, Anopheles, Gene drive, Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Modeling, Population modification/replacementS. Leung, N. Windbichler, E. A. Wenger, C. A. Bever and P. Selvaraj, Malaria Journal, 21:226. 2022.
BACKGROUND: Gene drives are a genetic engineering method where a suite of genes is inherited at higher than Mendelian rates and has been proposed as a promising new vector control strategy to reinvigorate the fight against malaria in sub-Saharan Africa. METHODS: Using an ...
Lack of robust evidence for a Wolbachia infection in Anopheles gambiae from Burkina Faso
Tags: Anopheles, Genetic biocontrol, Population modification/replacement, Population suppression, WolbachiaS. P. Sawadogo, D. A. Kabore, E. B. Tibiri, A. Hughes, O. Gnankine, S. Quek, A. Diabaté, H. Ranson, G. L. Hughes and R. K. Dabiré, Medical and Veterinary Entomology, 2022.
The endosymbiont Wolbachia can have major effects on the reproductive fitness, and vectorial capacity of host insects and may provide new avenues to control mosquito-borne pathogens. Anopheles gambiae s.l is the major vector of malaria in Africa but the use of Wolbachia in this ...
Attempts to use breeding approaches in Aedes aegypti to create lines with distinct and stable relative Wolbachia densities
Tags: Aedes, Cytoplasmic incompatibility, Genetics, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaA. J. Mejia, L. Jimenez, H. L. C. Dutra, R. Perera and E. A. McGraw, Heredity, 2022.
Wolbachia is an insect endosymbiont being used for biological control in the mosquito Aedes aegypti because it causes cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI) and limits viral replication of dengue, chikungunya, and Zika viruses. While the genetic mechanism of pathogen blocking (PB) is ...
A population modification gene drive targeting both Saglin and Lipophorin disables Plasmodium transmission in Anopheles mosquitoes
Tags: Anopheles, Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Population modification/replacement, Replicator/site directed nucleaseE. 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 ...
The Florida Keys Mosquito Control District & Oxitec Announce Launch of Next Phase of Ground-Breaking Project
Tags: Genetically modified mosquitoes, North America, Oxitec, Population modification/replacement, Sterile insect technique (SIT)Oxitec, Oxitec, 2022.
In a continuation of the FKMCD-Oxitec Mosquito Project, Oxitec and FKMCD announced that a new phase of the project (“Pilot D”) will be initiated on or after July 7th, 2022. This phase of the project will examine single-point releases of Oxitec’s male mosquitoes. In March ...
Natural and Engineered Sex Ratio Distortion in Insects
Tags: Agriculture, Biodiversity/Conservation, Gene drive synthetic, Population modification/replacement, Population suppression, Sex distorter, Transmission distortion, WolbachiaA. Compton and Z. Tu, Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 10. 2022.
Insects have evolved highly diverse genetic sex-determination mechanisms and a relatively balanced male to female sex ratio is generally expected. However, selection may shift the optimal sex ratio while meiotic drive and endosymbiont manipulation can result in sex ratio ...
Testing non-autonomous antimalarial gene drive effectors using self-eliminating drivers in the African mosquito vector Anopheles gambiae
Tags: Anopheles, Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Population modification/replacementD. A. Ellis, G. Avraam, A. Hoermann, C. A. S. Wyer, Y. X. Ong, G. K. Christophides and N. Windbichler, PLOS Genetics, 18:e1010244. 2022.
Author summary Gene drive is a method that allows the genetic modification of entire populations of harmful organisms. Their application to tackle invasive species, agricultural pests or insect disease vectors has been suggested. For example, they could reduce the capacity of ...
Wolbachia interacts with the microbiome to shape fitness-associated traits during seasonal adaptation in Drosophila melanogaster
Tags: Incompatible insect technique, Other Symbionts, Population modification/replacement, Population suppression, WolbachiaL. P. Henry, M. Fernandez, S. Wolf and J. Ayroles, bioRxiv, 2022.05.31.494239. 2022.
The microbiome contributes to many different host traits, but its role in host adaptation remains enigmatic. The fitness benefits of the microbiome often depend on ecological conditions, but fluctuations in both the microbiome and environment modulate these fitness benefits. ...
Wolbachia 16S rRNA haplotypes detected in wild Anopheles stephensi in eastern Ethiopia
Tags: Anopheles, Genetic biocontrol, Invasive species, Mosquitoes, Population modification/replacement, Population suppression, WolbachiaE. Waymire, S. Duddu, S. Yared, D. Getachew, D. Dengela, S. R. Bordenstein, M. Balkew, S. Zohdy, S. R. Irish and T. E. Carter, Parasites and Vectors, 15:178. 2022.
About two out of three Ethiopians are at risk of malaria, a disease caused by the parasites Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax. Anopheles stephensi, an invasive vector typically found in South Asia and the Middle East, was recently found to be distributed across eastern ...
Local adaptation of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes to Wolbachia-induced fitness costs
Tags: Genetic biocontrol, Mosquito husbandry, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaP. A. Ross and A. A. Hoffmann, bioRxiv, 2022.05.06.490959. 2022.
Aedes aegypti mosquito eggs can remain quiescent for many months before hatching, allowing populations to persist through unfavorable conditions. Aedes aegypti infected with the Wolbachia strain wMel have been released in tropical and subtropical regions for dengue control. wMel ...
MIT Researchers Propose Using Genetically Modified Mice to Fight Lyme Disease
Tags: Population modification/replacementK. Perrotte, Field and Stream, 2022.
In Massachusetts, researchers at MIT are proposing an experiment that would involve releasing genetically engineered mice into the native mouse population to ultimately reduce the prevalence of Lyme disease.Nantucket Island is the area proposed for the study, which has been years ...
Wolbachia endosymbionts in two Anopheles species indicates independent acquisitions and lack of prophage elements
Tags: Anopheles, Genomics, Other Symbionts, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaS. Quek, L. Cerdeira, C. L. Jeffries, S. Tomlinson, T. Walker, G. L. Hughes and E. Heinz, Microbial Genomics, 8. 2022.
Wolbachia is a genus of obligate bacterial endosymbionts that infect a diverse range of arthropod species as well as filarial nematodes, with its single described species, Wolbachia pipientis, divided into several ‘supergroups’ based on multilocus sequence typing. Wolbachia ...
Aedes aegypti abundance and insecticide resistance profiles in the applying Wolbachia to eliminate dengue trial
Tags: Aedes, Dengue, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaW. Tantowijoyo, S. K. Tanamas, I. Nurhayati, S. Setyawan, N. Budiwati, I. Fitriana, I. Ernesia, D. S. Wardana, E. Supriyati, E. Arguni, Y. Meitika, E. Prabowo, B. Andari, B. R. Green, L. Hodgson, E. Rancès, P. A. Ryan, S. L. O'Neill, K. L. Anders, M. R. A, PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, 16:e0010284. 2022.
The Applying Wolbachia to Eliminate Dengue (AWED) trial was a parallel cluster randomised trial that demonstrated Wolbachia (wMel) introgression into Ae. aegypti populations reduced dengue incidence. In this predefined substudy, we compared between treatment arms, the relative ...
A metapopulation approach to identify targets for Wolbachia-based dengue control
Tags: Aedes, Arbovirus, Dengue, Modeling, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaA. Reyna-Lara, D. Soriano-Paños, J. H. Arias-Castro, H. J. Martínez and J. Gómez-Gardeñes, Chaos, 32:041105. 2022.
Over the last decade, the release of Wolbachia-infected Aedes aegypti into the natural habitat of this mosquito species has become the most sustainable and long-lasting technique to prevent and control vector-borne diseases, such as dengue, zika, or chikungunya. However, the ...
Environmental factors influence the local establishment of Wolbachia in Aedes aegypti mosquitoes in two small communities in central Vietnam [version 2]
Tags: Aedes, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaN. T. Hien, D. D. Anh, N. H. Le, N. T. Yen, T. V. Phong, V. S. Nam, T. N. Duong, N. B. Nguyen, D. T. T. Huong, L. Q. Hung, C. N. T. Trinh, N. V. Hoang, V. Q. Mai, L. T. Nghia, N. T. Dong, L. H. Tho, S. Kutcher, T. P. Hurst, J. L. Montgomery, M. Woolfit, E, Gates Open Research, 5:147. 2022.
Background: The wMel strain of Wolbachia has been successfully introduced into Aedes aegypti mosquitoes and subsequently shown to reduce transmission of dengue and other pathogens, under both laboratory and field conditions. Here we describe the entomological outcomes of wMel ...
UC Davis — Malaria Gene Drive Feasibility Analysis
Tags: Africa, Gene drive synthetic, Policy, Population modification/replacement, Risk and safety, Stakeholder engagementGood Ventures, Good Ventures, 2022.
Open Philanthropy recommended a grant of $10,248,967 over three years to UC Davis to support subsequent stages of a feasibility analysis of a potential test of gene drives for malaria control on the adjoining West African islands of São Tomé and Príncipe. The work, led by Dr. ...
Special mosquitos to combat dengue fever in Binh Duong
Tags: Dengue, Genetic biocontrol, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaL. Phuong, VN Express, 2022.
Capsules containing mosquito eggs resistant to dengue fever viruses were released in southern Binh Duong's Thu Dau Mot Town on Thursday to help control the disease. The Wolbachia Project in southern Vietnam, conducted by the World Mosquito Program and collaborators, seeks to ...
Symbionts and gene drive: two strategies to combat vector-borne disease
Tags: Gene drive synthetic, Genetic biocontrol, Other Symbionts, Population modification/replacement, Population suppression, WolbachiaG.-H. Wang, J. Du, C. Y. Chu, M. Madhav, G. L. Hughes and J. Champer, Trends in Genetics, 2022.
Mosquitoes bring global health problems by transmitting parasites and viruses such as malaria and dengue. Unfortunately, current insecticide-based control strategies are only moderately effective because of high cost and resistance. Thus, scalable, sustainable, and cost-effective ...
Differential viral RNA methylation contributes to pathogen blocking in Wolbachia-colonized arthropods
Tags: Aedes, Arbovirus, Genetic biocontrol, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaT. Bhattacharya, L. Yan, J. M. Crawford, H. Zaher, I. L. G. Newton and R. W. Hardy, PLoS Pathogens, 18:e1010393. 2022.
Arthropod endosymbiont Wolbachia pipientis is part of a global biocontrol strategy to reduce the replication of mosquito-borne RNA viruses such as alphaviruses. We previously demonstrated the importance of a host cytosine methyltransferase, DNMT2, in Drosophila and viral RNA as a ...
Wolbachia wAlbB inhibits bluetongue and epizootic hemorrhagic fever viruses in Culicoides midge cells
Tags: Genetic biocontrol, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaM. L. Matthews, H. O. Covey, B. S. Drolet and C. L. Brelsfoard, Medical and Veterinary Entomology, 2022.
Abstract Culicoides midges are hematophagous insects that transmit arboviruses of veterinary importance. These viruses include bluetongue virus (BTV) and epizootic hemorrhagic fever virus (EHDV). The endosymbiont Wolbachia pipientis Hertig spreads rapidly through insect host ...
A UC malaria initiative program receives grant for work researching genetically engineered mosquitoes
Tags: Anopheles, Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Mosquitoes, Population modification/replacementS. Slater, The California Aggie, 2022.
Malaria, a mosquito-borne infectious disease, was discovered in 1880, and has remained widespread in tropical regions around the equator including parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America, resulting in thousands of deaths and a significant blow to economic development in these ...
Gene drive mosquitoes can aid malaria elimination by retarding Plasmodium sporogonic development
Tags: Anopheles, Gene drive, Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Mosquitoes, Population modification/replacementA. Hoermann, T. Habtewold, P. Selvaraj, G. Del Corsano, P. Capriotti, M. G. Inghilterra, K. M. Temesgen, G. K. Christophides and N. Windbichler, bioRxiv, 2022.02.15.480588. 2022.
Gene drives hold promise for the genetic control of malaria vectors. The development of vector population modification strategies hinges on the availability of effector mechanisms impeding parasite development in transgenic mosquitoes. We augmented a midgut gene of the malaria ...
C-type lectin 4 regulates broad-spectrum melanization-based refractoriness to malaria parasites
Tags: Anopheles, Genetic biocontrol, Malaria, Mosquitoes, Population modification/replacementM. L. Simões, Y. Dong, G. Mlambo and G. Dimopoulos, PLOS Biology, 20:e3001515. 2022.
Anopheles gambiae melanization-based refractoriness to the human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum has rarely been observed in either laboratory or natural conditions, in contrast to the rodent model malaria parasite Plasmodium berghei that can become completely melanized by ...
Scientists find transmission chain-breaker, give new hope for fight against malaria
Tags: Anopheles, Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Population modification/replacementANI, ANI, 2022.
A recent study, published online in 'PLoS Biology', has revealed that blocking a key protein found in Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes -- the principal vector for malaria transmission to humans in Africa could thwart infection with malaria parasites and thus prevent them from ...
Monitoring Needs for Gene Drive Mosquito Projects: Lessons From Vector Control Field Trials and Invasive Species
Tags: Field trials, Gene drive synthetic, Genetic biocontrol, Invasive species, Oxitec, Population modification/replacement, Population suppression, WolbachiaG. Rašić, N. F. Lobo, E. H. Jeffrey Gutiérrez, C. H. Sánchez and J. M. Marshall, Frontiers in Genetics, 12:780327. 2022.
As gene drive mosquito projects advance from contained laboratory testing to semi-field testing and small-scale field trials, there is a need to assess monitoring requirements to: i) assist with the effective introduction of the gene drive system at field sites, and ii) detect ...
Lab-scale characterization and semi-field trials of Wolbachia Strain wAlbB in a Taiwan Wolbachia introgressed Ae. aegypti strain
Tags: Dengue, Incompatible insect technique, Mosquito husbandry, Mosquitoes, Population modification/replacement, Population suppression, WolbachiaW. L. Liu, H. Y. Yu, Y. X. Chen, B. Y. Chen, S. N. Leaw, C. H. Lin, M. P. Su, L. S. Tsai, Y. Chen, S. H. Shiao, Z. Y. Xi, A. C. C. Jang and C. H. Chen, PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, 16:24. 2022.
Author summaryPrior to open field release, new genetic approaches that interfere with mosquito abilities and reduce mosquito population density require progressive evaluation both in the laboratory and contained field trials. Trials in contained outdoor systems are thus an ...
Wolbachia: Biological Control Strategy Against Arboviral Diseases
Tags: Aedes, Arbovirus, Genetic biocontrol, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaI. Mohanty, A. Rath and R. K. Hazra, Genetically Modified and other Innovative Vector Control Technologies, 2021.
Arboviral diseases like dengue, chikungunya, and Zika are among the major causes of mortality and morbidity in human population. The limited control methods together with lack of antiviral therapies and effective vaccines have paved way for new approaches. One such approach to ...
Wolbachia Endosymbiont and Mosquito Vectors, with Emphasis on Lymphatic Filariasis Elimination
Tags: Culex, Cytoplasmic incompatibility, Incompatible insect technique, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaI. P. Sunish, Genetically Modified and other Innovative Vector Control Technologies, 2021.
Wolbachia are maternally inherited intracellular bacteria, known to alter early development and mitotic processes in their hosts. They are frequently observed as a reproductive parasite, capable of inducing feminization, parthenogenesis, male killing, or cytoplasmic ...
Genomic insertion locus and Cas9 expression in the germline affect CRISPR/Cas9-based gene drive performance in the yellow fever mosquito Aedes aegypti
Tags: Aedes, Arbovirus, CRISPR, Dengue, Gene drive synthetic, Population modification/replacement, ResistanceW. R. Reid, J. Lin, A. E. Williams, R. Juncu, K. E. Olson and A. W. E. Franz, bioRxiv, 2021.12.08.471839. 2021.
The yellow fever mosquito Aedes aegypti is a major vector of arthropod-borne viruses, including dengue, chikungunya, and Zika. A novel approach to mitigate arboviral infections is to generate mosquitoes refractory to infection by overexpressing antiviral effector molecules. Such ...
Gene drive that results in addiction to a temperature-sensitive version of an essential gene triggers population collapse in Drosophila
Tags: Fruit fly, Gene drive synthetic, Population modification/replacement, Population suppression, Selfish genetic elements, Toxin-antidoteG. Oberhofer, T. Ivy and B. A. Hay, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118:e2107413118. 2021.
One strategy for population suppression seeks to use gene drive to spread genes that confer conditional lethality or sterility, providing a way of combining population modification with suppression. Stimuli of potential interest could be introduced by humans, such as an otherwise ...
High-resolution in situ analysis of Cas9 germline transcript distributions in gene-drive Anopheles mosquitoes
Tags: Anopheles, CRISPR, Gene drive synthetic, Population modification/replacement, Population suppressionG. Terradas, A. Hermann, A. A. James, W. McGinnis and E. Bier, G3-Genes Genomes Genetics, 2021.
Gene drives are programmable genetic elements that can spread beneficial traits into wild populations to aid in vector-borne pathogen control. Two different drives have been developed for population modification of mosquito vectors. The Reckh drive (vasa-Cas9) in Anopheles ...
High Temperature Cycles Result in Maternal Transmission and Dengue Infection Differences Between Wolbachia Strains in Aedes aegypti
Tags: Aedes, Cytoplasmic incompatibility, Dengue, Mosquitoes, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaM. V. Mancini, T. H. Ant, C. S. Herd, J. Martinez, S. M. Murdochy, D. D. Gingell, E. Mararo, P. C. D. Johnson and S. P. Sinkins, mBio, e0025021. 2021.
Environmental factors play a crucial role in the population dynamics of arthropod endosymbionts, and therefore in the deployment of Wolbachia symbionts for the control of dengue arboviruses. The potential of Wolbachia to invade, persist, and block virus transmission depends in ...
Population replacement gene drive characteristics for malaria elimination in a range of seasonal transmission settings: a modeling study
Tags: Anopheles, Field trials, Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Modeling, Population modification/replacementS. Leung, N. Windbichler, E. Wenger, C. Bever and P. Selvaraj, bioRxiv, 2021.11.01.466856. 2021.
Genetically engineering mosquitoes is a promising new vector control strategy to reinvigorate the fight against malaria in Sub-Saharan Africa. Using an agent-based model of malaria transmission with vector genetics, we examine the impacts of releasing population-replacement gene ...
Modeling the efficacy of CRISPR gene drive for schistosomiasis control
Tags: CRISPR, Gene drive synthetic, Modeling, Other invertebrates, Population modification/replacementR. E. Grewelle, J. Perez-Saez, J. Tycko, E. K. O. Namigai, C. G. Rickards and G. A. De Leo, bioRxiv, 2021.10.29.466423. 2021.
CRISPR gene drives could revolutionize the control of infectious diseases by accelerating the spread of engineered traits that limit parasite transmission in wild populations. While much effort has been spent developing gene drives in mosquitoes, gene drive technology in molluscs ...
A decade of stability for wMel Wolbachia in natural Aedes aegypti populations
Tags: Arbovirus, Dengue, Oceania, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaP. A. Ross, K. L. Robinson, Q. Yang, A. G. Callahan, T. L. Schmidt, J. K. Axford, M. P. Coquilleau, K. M. Staunton, M. Townsend, S. A. Ritchie, M.-J. Lau, X. Gu and A. A. Hoffmann, bioRxiv, 2021.10.27.466190. 2021.
Mosquitoes carrying Wolbachia endosymbionts are being released in many countries for arbovirus control. The wMel strain of Wolbachia blocks Aedes-borne virus transmission and can spread throughout mosquito populations by inducing cytoplasmic incompatibility. Aedes aegypti ...
Novel Symbiotic Genome-Scale Model Reveals Wolbachia’s Arboviral Pathogen Blocking Mechanism in Aedes aegypti
Tags: Aedes, Arbovirus, Cytoplasmic incompatibility, Dengue, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaN. E. Jiménez, Z. P. Gerdtzen, Á. Olivera-Nappa, J. C. Salgado and C. Conca, mBio, e0156321. 2021.
Arboviral diseases such as Zika and Dengue have been on the rise mainly due to climate change, and the development of new treatments and strategies to limit their spreading is needed. The use of Wolbachia as an approach for disease control has motivated new research related to ...
Spatial modelling for population replacement of mosquito vectors at continental scale
Tags: Africa, Anopheles, Gene drive synthetic, Modeling, Population modification/replacementN. J. Beeton, A. Wilkins, A. Ickowicz, K. R. Hayes and G. R. Hosack, bioRxiv, 2021.10.06.463299. 2021.
We explore transmission of the gene drive between the subspecies, different hybridisation mechanisms, the effects of both local dispersal and potential wind-aided migration to the spread, and the development of resistance to the gene drive. We find that given best current ...
Discrete dynamical models on Wolbachia infection frequency in mosquito populations with biased release ratios
Tags: Cytoplasmic incompatibility, Genetic biocontrol, Modeling, Population modification/replacement, Population suppression, WolbachiaY. Shi and B. Zheng, Journal of Biological Dynamics, 2021.
We develop two discrete models to study how supplemental releases affect the Wolbachia spreading dynamics in cage mosquito populations. The first model focuses on the case when only infected males are released at each generation. This release strategy has been proved to be ...
Wolbachia-Conferred Antiviral Protection Is Determined by Developmental Temperature
Tags: Arbovirus, Fruit fly, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaE. Chrostek, N. Martins, M. S. Marialva and L. Teixeira, mBio, e0292320. 2021.
Overall, we show that Wolbachia-conferred antiviral protection is temperature dependent, being present or absent depending on the environmental conditions. This interaction likely impacts Wolbachia-host interactions in nature and, as a result, frequencies of host and symbionts in ...
Assessment of fitness and vector competence of a New Caledonia wMel Aedes aegypti strain before field-release
Tags: Aedes, Dengue, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaN. Pocquet, O. O’Connor, H. A. Flores, J. Tutagata, M. Pol, D. J. Hooker, C. Inizan, S. Russet, J. M. Duyvestyn, E. C. Pacidônio, D. Girault, D. da Silva Gonçalves, M. Minier, F. Touzain, E. Chalus, K. Lucien, F. Cheilan, T. Derycke, S. Laumond, C. P. Sim, PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, 15:e0009752. 2021.
Dengue represents a risk for almost half of the world’s population, especially throughout the tropics. In New Caledonia, dengue outbreaks have become more frequent in the past decade along with the recent circulation of chikungunya and Zika viruses. The opportunity to use the ...
Mosquito transgenesis for malaria control
Tags: Anopheles, Gene drive, Gene editing, Genetically modified mosquitoes, Malaria, Population modification/replacementS. Dong, Y. Dong, M. L. Simões and G. Dimopoulos, Trends in Parasitology, 2021.
Malaria is one of the deadliest diseases. Because of the ineffectiveness of current malaria-control methods, several novel mosquito vector-based control strategies have been proposed to supplement existing control strategies. Mosquito transgenesis and gene drive have emerged as ...
Identifying Sites for Testing Modified Mosquitoes as a Strategy to Eradicate Malaria
Tags: Field trials, Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Population modification/replacementA. Fell, UC Davis News, 2021.
In a newly published article in the journal Evolutionary Applications Professor Greg Lanzaro and his team at the Vector Genetics Laboratory, UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, set forth a framework for the selection of field sites in Africa best suited for testing ...
Gene drives gaining speed
Tags: CRISPR, Gene drive synthetic, Population modification/replacement, Population suppression, UnderdominanceE. Bier, Nature Reviews Genetics, 2021.
Gene drives are selfish genetic elements that are transmitted to progeny at super-Mendelian (>50%) frequencies. Recently developed CRISPR–Cas9-based gene-drive systems are highly efficient in laboratory settings, offering the potential to reduce the prevalence of vector-borne ...
Combating mosquito-borne diseases using genetic control technologies
Tags: Dengue, Gene drive synthetic, Genetic biocontrol, Malaria, Mosquitoes, Population modification/replacement, Population suppression, Underdominance, WolbachiaG.-H. Wang, S. Gamez, R. R. Raban, J. M. Marshall, L. Alphey, M. Li, J. L. Rasgon and O. S. Akbari, Nature Communications, 12:4388. 2021.
Mosquito-borne diseases, such as dengue and malaria, pose significant global health burdens. Unfortunately, current control methods based on insecticides and environmental maintenance have fallen short of eliminating the disease burden. Scalable, deployable, genetic-based ...
A wAlbB Wolbachia< transinfection displays stable phenotypic effects across divergent Aedes aegypti mosquito backgrounds
Tags: Aedes, Dengue, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaP. A. Ross, X. Gu, K. L. Robinson, Q. Yang, E. Cottingham, Y. Zhang, H. L. Yeap, X. Xu, N. M. Endersby-Harshman and A. A. Hoffmann, bioRxiv, 2021.06.25.450002. 2021.
Aedes mosquitoes harboring intracellular Wolbachia bacteria are being released in arbovirus and mosquito control programs. With releases taking place around the world, understanding the contribution of host variation to Wolbachia phenotype is crucial. We generated a Wolbachia ...
Using gene drives to control malaria
Tags: Anopheles, CRISPR, Gene drive synthetic, Population modification/replacementA. Fell, Daily News, 2021.
A group of UC scientists led by Greg Lanzaro, professor of pathology, microbiology and immunology in the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, recently completed an analysis of a strategy aimed at eliminating malaria from Africa using genetically engineered mosquitoes. ...
Manipulated Mosquitoes Cut Dengue by 77%
Tags: Aedes, Asia, Cytoplasmic incompatibility, Dengue, Genetic biocontrol, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaT. Hayes, Healthcare Packaging, 2021.
Dengue, a mosquito-borne viral disease, wasn’t that common 50 years ago. In fact, only nine countries had severe outbreaks. But since then, it’s been on a steady incline to the point that there are now 400 million infections a year that contribute to 22,000 deaths. ...
Population modification strategies for malaria vector control are uniquely resilient to observed levels of gene drive resistance alleles
Tags: Anopheles, CRISPR, Gene drive synthetic, Population modification/replacementG. C. Lanzaro, H. M. Sánchez C, T. C. Collier, J. M. Marshall and A. A. James, BioEssays, 2021.
Cas9/guide RNA (gRNA)-based gene drive systems are expected to play a transformative role in malaria elimination efforts., whether through population modification, in which the drive system contains parasite-refractory genes, or population suppression, in which the drive system ...
Dengue Infections Can Be Sharply Reduced With Wolbachia Bacteria
Tags: Aedes, Asia, Cytoplasmic incompatibility, Dengue, Genetic biocontrol, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaJ. Stone, Medscape, 2021.
A modestly titled new study released in the New England Journal of Medicine belies the extraordinary 77% protective efficacy reported for preventing dengue infections with Wolbachia-infected Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. A cluster-randomized clinical trial, the AWED ("Applying ...
Making mosquitoes to fight mosquitoes to prevent dengue
Tags: Aedes, Asia, Cytoplasmic incompatibility, Dengue, Genetic biocontrol, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaA. George, Times of India, 2021.
In 2017, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal tweeted that the national capitl needed to be made mosquito-free. The same year, his Kerala counterpart, Pinaray Vijayan, called a three-day state-wide cleanliness drive as hospitals filled with genue patients.
Stable high-density and maternally inherited Wolbachia infections in Anopheles moucheti and Anopheles demeilloni mosquitoes
Tags: Anopheles, Cytoplasmic incompatibility, Malaria, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaT. Walker, S. Quek, C. L. Jeffries, J. Bandibabone, V. Dhokiya, R. Bamou, M. Kristan, L. A. Messenger, A. Gidley, E. A. Hornett, E. R. Anderson, C. Cansado-Utrilla, S. Hegde, C. Bantuzeko, J. C. Stevenson, N. F. Lobo, S. C. Wagstaff, C. A. Nkondjio, S. R., Current Biology, 31:2310. 2021.
Wolbachia, a widespread bacterium that can reduce pathogen transmission in mosquitoes, has recently been reported to be present in Anopheles (An.) species. In wild populations of the An. gambiae complex, the primary vectors of Plasmodium malaria in Sub-Saharan Africa, Wolbachia ...
Using Wolbachia to Eliminate Dengue: Will the Virus Fight Back?
Tags: Aedes, Dengue, Genetic biocontrol, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaM. Edenborough Kathryn, A. Flores Heather, P. Simmons Cameron, E. Fraser Johanna and C. Pierson Ted, Journal of Virology, 95:e02203-20. 2021.
Recent fieldtrials havedemonstratedthatdengue incidence can besubstantially reduced by introgressing strains of the endosymbiotic bacterium Wolbachia into Aedes aegypti mosquito populations. This strategy relies on Wolbachia reducing the susceptibility of Ae. aegypti to ...
Dengue Fever Cut Down by 77% With Groundbreaking Bacteria-Armed Mosquitoes
Tags: Aedes, Asia, Cytoplasmic incompatibility, Dengue, Genetic biocontrol, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaM. Davis, The Science Times, 2021.
Scientists found that dengue fever cases have decreased by 77% in a groundbreaking trial that took place in Yogyakarta City, Indonesia. They used Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes that reduced their ability to spread the dengue fever. The team at the World Mosquito Program said that ...
Mosquito ‘bacteria hack’ nearly eliminates dengue fever and could save millions of lives
Tags: Aedes, Asia, Cytoplasmic incompatibility, Dengue, Genetic biocontrol, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaA. Wilkins, METRO, 2021.
Mosquitoes infected with a ‘miraculous’ bacteria have been shown to reduce dengue fever cases by 77%, in a groundbreaking new study. Scientists released mosquitoes infected with ‘Wolbachia’ bacteria into the Indonesian city of Yogyakarta – but only in certain zones. In ...
‘Miraculous’ mosquito hack cuts dengue by 77%
Tags: Aedes, Asia, Cytoplasmic incompatibility, Dengue, Genetic biocontrol, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaJ. Gallagher, BBC, 2021.
Dengue fever cases have been cut by 77% in a "groundbreaking" trial that manipulates the mosquitoes that spread it, say scientists. They used mosquitoes infected with "miraculous" bacteria that reduce the insect's ability to spread dengue. The trial took place in Yogyakarta city, ...
Modified mosquitoes reduce dengue cases by 77% in Indonesia experiment
Tags: Aedes, Asia, Cytoplasmic incompatibility, Dengue, Genetic biocontrol, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaM. Fox, CNN, 2021.
An experiment to infect mosquitoes with bacteria that stop them from transmitting viruses appears to have helped reduced the spread of deadly dengue virus in Indonesia, researchers reported Wednesday. The modified mosquitoes thrived for three years, and cases of dengue were ...
Efficacy of Wolbachia-Infected Mosquito Deployments for the Control of Dengue
Tags: Aedes, Asia, Cytoplasmic incompatibility, Dengue, Genetic biocontrol, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaA. Utarini, C. Indriani, R. A. Ahmad, W. Tantowijoyo, E. Arguni, M. R. Ansari, E. Supriyati, D. S. Wardana, Y. Meitika, I. Ernesia, I. Nurhayati, E. Prabowo, B. Andari, B. R. Green, L. Hodgson, Z. Cutcher, E. Rancès, P. A. Ryan, S. L. O’Neill, S. M. Dufau, New England Journal of Medicine, 384:2177-2186. 2021.
BACKGROUND Aedes aegypti mosquitoes infected with the wMel strain of Wolbachia pipientis are less susceptible than wild-type A. aegypti to dengue virus infection. METHODS We conducted a cluster-randomized trial involving releases of wMel-infected A. aegypti mosquitoes for the ...
A Pivotal Mosquito Experiment Could Not Have Gone Better
Tags: Cytoplasmic incompatibility, Dengue, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaE. Yong, The Atlantic, 2021.
The World Mosquito Program (WMP), a nonprofit that pioneered this technique, had run small pilot studies in Australia that suggested it could work. Utarini, who co-leads WMP Yogyakarta, has now shown conclusively that it does. Her team released Wolbachia-carrying mosquitoes in ...
Mosquitoes armed with virus-fighting bacteria sharply curb dengue infections, hospitalizations
Tags: Aedes, Asia, Cytoplasmic incompatibility, Dengue, Genetic biocontrol, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaK. Servick, Science, 2021.
A strategy for fighting dengue fever with bacteria-armed mosquitoes has passed its most rigorous test yet: a large, randomized, controlled trial. Researchers reported today dramatic reductions in rates of dengue infection and hospitalization in areas of an Indonesian city where ...
Study demonstrates ‘exciting potential’ of Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes to control dengue
Tags: Aedes, Asia, Cytoplasmic incompatibility, Dengue, Genetic biocontrol, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaG. Gallagher, Healio, 2021.
The release of Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes led to a 77% reduction in the incidence of symptomatic dengue in an Indonesian city, according to researchers, who said the same approach could be used to fight other mosquito-borne diseases. The study tested a strain of Wolbachia ...
Vector control: Discovery of Wolbachia in malaria vectors
Tags: Anopheles, Cytoplasmic incompatibility, Malaria, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaP. A. Ross and A. A. Hoffmann, Current Biology, 31:R738-R740. 2021.
Wolbachia bacteria are being widely released for suppression of dengue transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes. Walker, Quek, Jeffries and colleagues present robust evidence for natural Wolbachia infections in malaria-vectoring Anopheles mosquitoes, paving the way for new ...
The origin of island populations of the African malaria mosquito, Anopheles coluzzii
Tags: Africa, Anopheles, Gene drive synthetic, Genetics, Population modification/replacementM. Campos, M. Hanemaaijer, H. Gripkey, T. C. Collier, Y. S. Lee, A. J. Cornel, J. Pinto, D. Ayala, H. Rompao and G. C. Lanzaro, Communications Biology, 4:9. 2021.
Anopheles coluzzii is a major malaria vector throughout its distribution in west-central Africa. Here we present a whole-genome study of 142 specimens from nine countries in continental Africa and three islands in the Gulf of Guinea. This sample set covers a large part of this ...
Malaria-Resistant Mosquitoes (Diptera: Culicidae); The Principle is Proven, But Will the Effectors Be Effective?
Tags: Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Mosquitoes, Population modification/replacementZ. N. Adelman and B. B. Kojin, Journal of Medical Entomology, 58:1997-2005. 2021.
Over the last few decades, a substantial number of anti-malarial effector genes have been evaluated for their ability to block parasite infection in the mosquito vector. While many of these approaches have yielded significant effects on either parasite intensity or prevalence of ...
Targeting conserved sequences circumvents the evolution of resistance in a viral gene drive against human cytomegalovirus
Tags: Arbovirus, CRISPR, Gene drive synthetic, Population modification/replacement, Replicator/site directed nucleaseM. Walter, R. Perrone and E. Verdin, Journal of virology, 2021.
Here, we analyze in cell culture experiments the evolution of resistance in a viral gene drive against human cytomegalovirus. We report that, after an initial invasion of the wildtype population, a drive-resistant population is positively selected over time and outcompetes gene ...
Selection of Sites for Field Trials of Genetically Engineered Mosquitoes with Gene Drive
Tags: Africa, Anopheles, Field trials, Gene drive synthetic, Genetically modified mosquitoes, Governance, Malaria, Policy, Population modification/replacement, RegulationG. C. Lanzaro, M. Campos, M. Crepeau, A. Cornel, A. Estrada, H. Gripkey, Z. Haddad, A. Kormos, S. Palomares and W. Sharpee, bioRxiv, 2021.04.28.441877. 2021.
Novel malaria control strategies using genetically engineered mosquitoes (GEMs) are on the horizon. Population modification is one approach wherein mosquitoes are engineered with genes rendering them refractory to the malaria parasite coupled with a low-threshold, Cas9-based gene ...
CRISPR may help curb malaria by altering a mosquito’s gut genes, new study suggests
Tags: Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Population modification/replacementCornell Alliance for Science, Genetic Literacy Project, 2021.
Altering a mosquito’s gut genes to make them spread antimalarial genes to the next generation of their species shows promise as an approach to curb malaria, suggests a preliminary study published in eLife. The study is the latest in a series of steps toward using CRISPR-Cas9 ...
Eliminating malaria via a simple genetic modification
Tags: Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Population modification/replacementS. Gunn, Front Line Genomics, 2021.
Despite decades worth of research and efforts, data from 2015 onwards suggests that there has been no significant progress in reducing global malaria cases. Every year, around 400,00 people die from malaria, with over 90% of cases being within sub-Saharan Africa. The rise of ...
This Malaria Preventing Mosquito Is Not A GMO But Is A Science Boost For Nature – Will Activists Want To Block It?
Tags: Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Population modification/replacementH. Campbell, science 2.0, 2021.
Mosquitoes like Aedes aegypti don't have any value ecologically. If Thanos snapped them out of existence tomorrow there is nothing they do that won't immediately be taken up by 3,000 other mosquito species, not to mention 25,000 bee species when it comes to pollination. The ...
Breeding Malaria Out: Scientists Engineer Mosquitos to Spread Antimalaria Genes
Tags: Anopheles, Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Population modification/replacementL. Papadopoulos, INTERSTING ENGINEERING, 2021.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), malaria is a "serious and sometimes fatal disease caused by a parasite that commonly infects a certain type of mosquito which feeds on humans." There are four types of malaria parasites: Plasmodium falciparum, P. ...
Curbing Malaria’s Spread by Genetic Engineering
Tags: Anopheles, Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Population modification/replacementAnonymous, Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News, 2021.
There is an urgent need to find new ways to combat the growing mosquito resistance to pesticides and malaria parasite resistance to antimalarial drugs. Gene drives are being tested as a new approach. In a new study, researchers from the Imperial College London reported that their ...
New genetic modification could cut malaria spread
Tags: Anopheles, Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Population modification/replacementStaff Writers, MALAYSIA NOW, 2021.
Altering a mosquito’s gut genes to make them spread antimalarial genes to the next generation of their species shows promise as an approach to curb malaria, suggests a preliminary study published in eLife on Tuesday. The study is the latest in a series of steps being taken ...
Researchers Using Mutant Mosquitoes To End Malaria, Which Kills 4 Lakh Per Year
Tags: Anopheles, Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Population modification/replacementM. Mohanti, India Times, 2021.
Every year, more than 22 crore people get infected with malaria and more than 4 lakh die because of it. In fact, in 2019, nearly half of the world's population was at risk of malaria. According to WHO, infants or children aged under 5 years are the most vulnerable group, ...
Evidence for natural hybridization and novel Wolbachia strain superinfections in the Anopheles gambiae complex from Guinea
Tags: Anopheles, Genetic biocontrol, Mosquitoes, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaC. L. Jeffries, C. Cansado-Utrilla, A. H. Beavogui, C. Stica, E. K. Lama, M. Kristan, S. R. Irish and T. Walker, Royal Society Open Science, 8:18. 2021.
Wolbachia, a widespread bacterium which can influence mosquito-borne pathogen transmission, has recently been detected within Anopheles (An.) species that are malaria vectors in Sub-Saharan Africa. Although studies have reported Wolbachia strains in the An. gambiae complex, ...
Current Effector and Gene-Drive Developments to Engineer Arbovirus-Resistant Aedes aegypti (Diptera: Culicidae) for a Sustainable Population Replacement Strategy in the Field
Tags: Aedes, Arbovirus, Gene drive synthetic, Mosquitoes, Population modification/replacementW. R. Reid, K. E. Olson and A. W. E. Franz, J Med Entomol, 2021.
Conventional mosquito control efforts based on insecticide treatments and/or the use of bednets and window curtains are currently insufficient to reduce arbovirus prevalence in affected regions. Novel, genetic strategies that are being developed involve the genetic manipulation ...
Genetically modified mosquitoes for better health
Tags: Gene drive synthetic, Gene editing, Genetic biocontrol, Genetically modified mosquitoes, Malaria, Population modification/replacement, Population suppression, Risk assessmentD. Devis, COSMOS, 2021.
One method of preventing these mosquito-born diseases is to use insecticides to kill the mozzies and remove them, but sometimes this only works as a short term solution, or has unintended devasting effects on the ecosystem. Another method for decreasing the number of ...
Quantifying the risk of vector-borne disease transmission attributable to genetically modified vectors
Tags: Gene drive synthetic, Gene editing, Genetic biocontrol, Genetically modified mosquitoes, Malaria, Modeling, Population modification/replacement, Population suppression, Regulation, Risk assessmentG. R. Hosack, A. Ickowicz and K. R. Hayes, Royal Society Open Science, 8:201525. 2021.
The relative risk of disease transmission caused by the potential release of transgenic vectors, such as through sterile insect technique or gene drive systems, is assessed with comparison with wild-type vectors. The probabilistic risk framework is demonstrated with an assessment ...
Demographic feedbacks can hamper the spatial spread of a gene drive
Tags: Gene drive synthetic, Genetic biocontrol, Modeling, Population genetics/dynamics, Population modification/replacement, Population suppression, Replicator/site directed nuclease, WolbachiaL. Girardin and F. Débarre, arXiv, 2021.
Our results indicate that taking into account the interplay between population dynamics and population genetics might actually be crucial, as it can effectively reverse the direction of the invasion and lead to failure. Our findings can be extended to other bistable systems, such ...
Exploring Gene Drive Technologies in Agriculture, Biodiversity and Human Disease
Tags: Biodiversity/Conservation, Ethics, Gene drive synthetic, Mosquitoes, Policy, Population modification/replacement, Population suppression, Regulation, Risk and safety, Stakeholder engagementThe GBIRd Partnership and The GeneConvene Global Collaborative, Gene Drive Research Forum, 2021.
The GBIRd Partnership and The GeneConvene Global Collaborative recently collaborated through The Gene Drive Research Forum, to create and produce an engaging conversation between Drs. Fred Gould and Charles Godfray about gene drive technologies – the potential benefits and ...
CRISPR and the splice to survive: New gene-editing technology could be used to save species from extinction—or to eliminate them.
Tags: Biodiversity/Conservation, CRISPR, Gene drive synthetic, Genetic biocontrol, Invasive species, Mosquitoes, Oceania, Population modification/replacement, Population suppressionE. Kolbert, New Yorker, 2021.
About a year ago, not long before the pandemic began, I paid a visit to the center, which is an hour southwest of Melbourne. The draw was an experiment on a species of giant toad known familiarly as the cane toad. The toad was introduced to Australia as an agent of pest control, ...
Next-generation tools to control biting midge populations and reduce pathogen transmission
Tags: Agriculture, Cytoplasmic incompatibility, Gene drive synthetic, Genetic biocontrol, Other mammals, Policy, Population modification/replacement, Population suppression, Regulation, Stakeholder engagement, WolbachiaP. Shults, L. W. Cohnstaedt, Z. N. Adelman and C. Brelsfoard, Parasites and Vectors, 14:31. 2021.
Biting midges of the genus Culicoides transmit disease-causing agents resulting in a significant economic impact on livestock industries in many parts of the world. Localized control efforts, such as removal of larval habitat or pesticide application, can be logistically ...
Mosquito Sexual Selection and Reproductive Control Programs
Tags: Ecology, Gene drive synthetic, Genetic biocontrol, Genetics, Mosquitoes, Population genetics/dynamics, Population modification/replacement, Population suppressionL. J. Cator, C. A. S. Wyer and L. C. Harrington, Trends in Parasitology, 2021.
Recent work has generated many key insights about specific aspects of mating behavior and physiology. Here, we synthesize these findings and classify swarming mosquito systems as polygynous. Male mating success is highly variable in swarms and evidence suggests that it is likely ...
Control of malaria-transmitting mosquitoes using gene drives
Tags: CRISPR, Gene drive synthetic, Population modification/replacement, Population suppression, Replicator/site directed nuclease, ResistanceT. Nolan, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 376:20190803. 2020.
In this article, I will discuss the relative merits of this type of gene drive, as well as barriers to its technical development and to its deployment in the field as malaria control. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Novel control strategies for mosquito-borne ...
Modelling the Wolbachia incompatible insect technique: strategies for effective mosquito population elimination
Tags: Aedes, Incompatible insect technique, Modeling, Mosquitoes, Population modification/replacement, Population suppression, Sterile insect technique (SIT), WolbachiaD. E. Pagendam, B. J. Trewin, N. Snoad, S. A. Ritchie, A. A. Hoffmann, K. M. Staunton, C. Paton and N. Beebe, BMC Biology, 18:13. 2020.
We introduce a simple Markov population process model for studying mosquito populations subjected to a Wolbachia-IIT programme which exhibit an unstable equilibrium threshold. The model is used to study, in silico, scenarios that are likely to yield a successful elimination ...
Mosquito population modification: the drive to malaria eradication
Tags: Anopheles, CRISPR, Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Population modification/replacementA. A. James, BugBitten BMC, 2020.
We have had considerable success in the past demonstrating that we can use modern molecular biological and insect transgenesis tools to make genes that prevent mosquitoes from passing on parasites (see 1 and 2). We have focused most recently on laboratory experiments to find ways ...
ARRIGE 2020 Meeting | The promise of CRISPR and gene drive systems to end malaria in Africa
Tags: Africa, Gene drive synthetic, Population modification/replacement, Population suppression, Stakeholder engagement, Target malaria, Video, WebinarE. Gomez-Diaz, ARRIGE org, 2020.
Presentation by Elena Gómez Díaz (IPBLN-CSIC, Granada, Spain) at the ARRIGE 2020 meeting on "The promise of CRISPR and gene drive systems to end malaria in Africa". Discussion is included at the end of the Ruud de Maagd presentation.https://youtu.be/te3MJ8EZoes
Brave New Planet: Reshaping Nature Through Gene Drives
Tags: Gene drive synthetic, Governance, Mosquitoes, Policy, Population modification/replacement, Regulation, Risk and safety, Stakeholder engagement, Target malariaE. Lander, Brave New Planet, 2020.
A new technology, called gene drives, has the power to spread any genetic instructions you wish across an entire animal or plant species in the wild. It might let us restore ecosystems ravaged by invasive species, or help species adapt to climate change. And, it might save ...
Gene drive blocks malaria transmission in mosquitoes
Tags: Africa, CRISPR, Gene drive synthetic, Genetic biocontrol, Genetics, Malaria, Population modification/replacementlabonline, labonline, 2020.
Employing a strategy known as ‘population modification’, which involves using a CRISPR-Cas9 gene drive system to introduce genes preventing parasite transmission into mosquito chromosomes, University of California (UC) researchers have made a major advance in the use of ...
Gene Drives: A Controversial Tool to Fight Malaria
Tags: Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Mosquitoes, Policy, Population modification/replacement, Population suppression, RegulationH. Albert, LABIOTECH.eu, 2020.
The possibility of creating gene drives was introduced into the scientific community in 2003 by Austin Burt, a professor at Imperial College London. Burt was studying ‘selfish genes’ that can copy themselves into a specific target DNA sequence. He suggested that these genes, ...
A gene-drive rescue system for the modification of malaria mosquito populations
Tags: Africa, CRISPR, Gene drive synthetic, Genetic biocontrol, Genetics, Malaria, Population modification/replacementA. Adolfi, Nature Research Bioengineering Community, 2020.
Mosquito populations can now be reliably modified using 1) antimalarial molecules that block parasite development and 2) a CRISPR-based gene drive system that mediates their rapid spreading across the vector population.
UC researchers pioneer more effective method of blocking malaria transmission in mosquitoes
Tags: Africa, CRISPR, Gene drive synthetic, Genetic biocontrol, Genetics, Malaria, Population modification/replacementUCI, UCI News, 2020.
University of California, Irvine postdoctoral researcher Adriana Adolfi, in collaboration with colleagues at UCI, UC Berkeley and UC San Diego, followed up on the group’s pioneering effort to develop CRISPR-based gene drive systems for making mosquito vectors resistant to ...
GeneConvene Global Collaborative Webinar Series | Gene Drive Technical Webinars
Tags: CRISPR, Gene drive synthetic, Genetic incompatibilities, Population modification/replacement, Population suppression, Replicator/site directed nuclease, WebinarDavid O'Brochta and Hector Quemada, GeneConvene Global Collaborative, 2020.
A series of technical webinars on engineered gene drive technology research and development given by leading researchers in the field.
Risks of releasing gene drives mosquitoes – a possible future scenario
Tags: Gene drive synthetic, Policy, Population modification/replacement, Population suppression, Regulation, Risk and safetyTestbiotech, 2020.
Genetically engineering the genome of an organism with gene drive means that it will be replicated in every following generation. This allows the altered gene to spread rapidly throughout natural populations, which may be decimated or even eradicated. The video contains both ...
A CRISPR homing gene drive targeting a haplolethal gene removes resistance alleles and successfully spreads through a cage population
Tags: Gene drive synthetic, Population modification/replacement, Replicator/site directed nuclease, Resistance, Toxin-antidoteJ. Champer, E. Yang, E. Lee, J. Liu, A. G. Clark and P. W. Messer, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 202004373. 2020.
Here, we present a CRISPR homing drive that was able to successfully spread to all individuals in a laboratory cage study in Drosophila melanogaster without any apparent evolution of resistance.
Anthony James / Mosquito Modification
Tags: Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Population modification/replacement, Replicator/site directed nucleaseBig Picture Science, SETI Institute, 2020.
Anthony James, vector biologist at the University of California, Irvine, describeshow we might genetically modify mosquitoes to make them unable to pass malaria on to humans.
Next-generation gene drive for population modification of the malaria vector mosquito, Anopheles gambiae
Tags: Anopheles, CRISPR, Gene drive synthetic, Genetics, Population modification/replacement, Replicator/site directed nuclease, ResistanceR. Carballar-Lejarazú, C. Ogaugwu, T. Tushar, A. Kelsey, T. B. Pham, J. Murphy, H. Schmidt, Y. Lee, G. C. Lanzaro and A. A. James, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 202010214. 2020.
We show here that the Cas9/guide RNA-based gene-drive components of a genetically-engineered malaria mosquito vector, Anopheles gambiae, achieve key target product profile requirements for efficacy and performance.
Engineered Reproductively Isolated Species Drive Reversible Population Replacement
Tags: Fruit fly, Gene drive synthetic, Genetic incompatibilities, Incompatible insect technique, Population modification/replacementA. Buchman, I. Shriner, T. Yang, J. Liu, I. Antoshechkin, J. M. Marshall, M. W. Perry and O. S. Akbari, bioRxiv, 2020.08.09.242982. 2020.
Engineered reproductive species barriers are useful for impeding gene flow and driving desirable genes into wild populations in a reversible threshold-dependent manner. We engineer multiple reproductively isolated SPECIES and demonstrate their threshold-dependent gene drive ...
Efficient population modification gene-drive rescue system in the malaria mosquito Anopheles stephensi
Tags: Africa, Anopheles, CRISPR, Gene drive synthetic, Genetic biocontrol, Genetics, Malaria, Population modification/replacement, Replicator/site directed nuclease, Risk and safetyA. Adolfi, V. M. Gantz, N. Jasinskiene, H.-F. Lee, K. Hwang, E. A. Bulger, A. Ramaiah, J. B. Bennett, G. Terradas, J. J. Emerson, J. M. Marshall, E. Bier and A. A. James, bioRxiv, 2020.08.02.233056. 2020.
We developed the first recoded gene-drive rescue system for population modification in the malaria vector, Anopheles stephensi, that relieves the load in females caused by integration of the drive into the kynurenine hydroxylase gene by rescuing its function. Non-functional ...
ENSSER | Gene Drive Webinar Series
Tags: Ethics, Gene drive synthetic, Policy, Population modification/replacement, Population suppression, Regulation, Risk and safety, Stakeholder engagement, WebinarEuropean Network of Scientists for Social and Environmental Responsibility, 2020.
This series of five Webinars by some of the authors of the interdisciplinary Gene Drive Report (2019) and were organised by four organisations of independent scientists: the European Network of Scientists for Social and Environmental Responsibility (ENSSER), Critical Scientists ...
Mosquitoes engineered to resist the malaria parasite
Tags: Anopheles, Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Population modification/replacementAnonymous, Lab+Life Scientist, 2020.
Anopheles mosquitoes that have been genetically engineered with multiple antimalaria molecules, acting at different stages of the malaria life cycle, are strongly resistant to the parasite that causes malaria and are unlikely to lose that resistance quickly.
New study highlights success of gene drive technology with preventing mosquito-spread diseases
Tags: Anopheles, Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Population modification/replacementA. Meckler-Pacheco, The California Aggie, 2020.
For the past 30 years, researchers have studied the usage of gene drive technology to stop the spread of malaria. The idea is to create genetically engineered mosquitoes (GEM) that are either resistant to carrying the malaria parasite or that fail to reproduce, which would result ...
Converting endogenous genes of the malaria mosquito into simple non-autonomous gene drives for population replacement
Tags: Anopheles, CRISPR, Gene drive synthetic, Genetic biocontrol, Malaria, Population modification/replacement, Replicator/site directed nucleaseA. Hoermann, S. Tapanelli, P. Capriotti, E. K. G. Masters, T. Habtewold, G. K. Christophides and N. Windbichler, bioRxiv, 2020.
Here we explore how minimal genetic modifications of endogenous mosquito genes can convert them directly into non-autonomous gene drives without disrupting their expression.
Gene editing and the war against malaria
Tags: Africa, Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Population modification/replacement, Population suppressionE. Bier and E. Sobber, American Scientist, 102:162. 2020.
Malaria is a devastating disease transmitted from person to person by mosquitoes. It kills more than 400,000 people per year, more than half of those deaths being children 5 years old or younger. CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) is a new ...
Engineering a minimal gene drive system for integral replacement in Drosophila melanogaster
Tags: Fruit fly, Gene drive synthetic, Population modification/replacementA. Nash, Imperial College London, 2020.
Gene drives represent a powerful tool for the control of vector-borne diseases. By suppressing or replacing vector populations, laboratory studies have highlighted the potential for this group of tools to make a powerful impact on the burden of zoonotic disease. Current genetic ...
Synthetically engineered mosquitos could neutralize dengue virus infection
Tags: Aedes, Dengue, Gene drive synthetic, Population modification/replacementL. Woolfe, Biotechniques, 2020.
Dengue virus infection can be severe and life threatening. New research has developed an improved approach to controlling this deadly infection.
Mosquitoes genetically modified to combat dengue
Tags: Aedes, Dengue, Gene drive synthetic, Population modification/replacementDowntoearth, Down To Earth, 2020.
For the first time mosquitoes have been engineered to fight all 4 known types of dengue
Genetically Modified Mosquitos Neutralize Dengue Virus
Tags: Aedes, Dengue, Gene drive synthetic, Population modification/replacementN. P. Dyal, Infectious Disease Advisor, 2020.
Researchers at the University of California San Diego have identified a target gene in mosquitos that renders the insects completely refractory to all 4 serotypes of the dengue virus and thus, incapable of transmitting the virus to humans, according to study results published in ...
Genetically modified mosquitoes resist all dengue viruses, researchers find
Tags: Aedes, Dengue, Gene drive synthetic, Population modification/replacementB. Burton, C|NET, 2020.
This new kind of mosquito can't spread any form of the deadly disease.
Genetically engineered mosquitoes resist spreading any form of dengue
Tags: Aedes, Dengue, Gene drive synthetic, Population modification/replacementK. Servick, Science, 2020.
Recover from dengue once, and you’re not necessarily free and clear. The mosquito-borne disease marked by fever, rash, and debilitating pain results from any of four genetically distinct versions of the dengue virus. Previously infected people who get hit with a second of these ...
Genetically engineered mosquitoes halt Dengue spread
Tags: Aedes, Dengue, Gene drive synthetic, Population modification/replacementL. Thomas, New Medical Life Sciences, 2020.
A new study published in the journal PLOS Pathogens in January 2020 reports the development of mosquitoes that have been genetically modified to resist infection by several types of the dengue virus. This is the first time ever that all types of the virus have been targeted by ...
Researchers Genetically Modify First Batch Of Mosquitoes Resistant To All Four Types Of Dengue
Tags: Aedes, Dengue, Gene drive synthetic, Population modification/replacementM. Dapcevich, IFL Science, 2020.
An international team of researchers have synthetically engineered a breed of mosquitos that are resistant to all four types of the dengue virus for the first time, a feat they say may someday suppress the disease and stop its transmission to humans.
Genetically engineered mosquitoes are immune to all strains of dengue virus for first time
Tags: Aedes, Dengue, Gene drive synthetic, Population modification/replacementG. Weule, ABC News Online, 2020.
Locked in a secure lab near Melbourne is the newest addition in the fight against dengue: genetically engineered mosquitoes that are resistant to all strains of the potentially deadly virus.
Mosquitoes resistant to all types of dengue virus engineered
Tags: Aedes, Dengue, Gene drive synthetic, Population modification/replacementN. Lavars, New Atlas, 2020.
Last year, scientists at Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) made a big breakthrough, engineering mosquitoes that break the chain of Zika virus transmission. But they did so with multiple targets in mind, with the mosquito in question, ...
Broad dengue neutralization in mosquitoes expressing an engineered antibody
Tags: Aedes, Dengue, Gene drive synthetic, Population modification/replacementA. Buchman, S. Gamez, M. Li, I. Antoshechkin, H.-H. Li, H.-W. Wang, C.-H. Chen, M. J. Klein, J.-B. Duchemin, J. E. Crowe, Jr., P. N. Paradkar and O. S. Akbari, PLOS Pathogens, 16:e1008103. 2020.
Author summary With limited success of traditional vector control methods to curb dengue infections and more than half of the world’s population still at risk, there is a need for novel strategies to reduce its impact on public health. Recent advances in genetic technologies ...
Antiviral effectors and gene drive strategies for mosquito population suppression or replacement to mitigate arbovirus transmission by Aedes aegypti
Tags: Aedes, Arbovirus, Gene drive synthetic, Population modification/replacement, Population suppressionA. E. Williams, A. W. E. Franz, W. R. Reid and K. E. Olson, Insects, 11:1-18. 2020.
The mosquito vector Aedes aegypti transmits arthropod-borne viruses (arboviruses) of medical importance, including Zika, dengue, and yellow fever viruses. Controlling mosquito populations remains the method of choice to prevent disease transmission. Novel mosquito control ...
Wolbachia transinfections in Culex quinquefasciatus generate cytoplasmic incompatibility
Tags: Culex, Cytoplasmic incompatibility, Incompatible insect technique, Population modification/replacement, WolbachiaT. H. Ant, C. Herd, F. Louis, A. B. Failloux and S. P. Sinkins, Insect Molecular Biology, 29:1-8. 2020.
Culex quinquefasciatus is an important mosquito vector of a number of viral and protozoan pathogens of humans and animals, and naturally carries the endosymbiont Wolbachia pipientis, strain wPip. Wolbachia are used in two distinct vector control strategies: firstly, population ...
Biomphalaria glabrata Granulin Increases Resistance to Schistosoma mansoni Infection in Several Biomphalaria Species and Induces the Production of Reactive Oxygen Species by Haemocytes
Tags: Gene drive synthetic, Population modification/replacementJ. R. Hambrook, A. A. Gharamah, E. A. Pila, S. Hussein and P. C. Hanington, Genes, 11:12. 2019.
In this study, we demonstrate that in vivo addition of Biomphalaria glabrata pro-granulin (BgGRN) can reduce Schistosoma mansoni infection success in numerous Biomphalaria sp. when challenged with different S. mansoni strains. We also demonstrate that cleavage of BgGRN into ...
Design and analysis of CRISPR-based underdominance toxin-antidote gene drives
Tags: CRISPR, Gene drive, Gene drive synthetic, Genetic engineering, Modeling, Population modification/replacement, Population suppression, Toxin-antidote, UnderdominanceChamper, J., S. E. Champer, I. Kim, A. G. Clark and P. W. Messer, bioRxiv, 861435:861435. 2019.
CRISPR gene drive systems offer a mechanism for transmitting a desirable transgene throughout a population for purposes ranging from vector-borne disease control to invasive species suppression. In this simulation study, we model and assess the performance of several CRISPR-based ...
Malaysia Wolbachia trials: Battling dengue and other mosquito-borne viruses
Tags: Aedes, Dengue, Genetic biocontrol, Population modification/replacement, Wolbachia2019.
Viral gene drive in herpesviruses
Tags: Arbovirus, Gene drive synthetic, Genetics, Population modification/replacement, Population suppression, Replicator/site directed nucleaseWalter, M. and E. Verdin, bioRxiv, 2019:717017. 2019.
Herpesviruses are ubiquitous pathogens in need of novel therapeutic solutions. Current engineered gene drive strategies rely on sexual reproduction, and are thought to be restricted to sexual organisms. Here, we report on the design of a novel gene drive system that allows the ...
Population modification of Anopheline species to control malaria transmission
Tags: Gene drive mechanisms, Gene drive synthetic, Population modification/replacement, Risk and safetyR. Carballar-Lejarazú and A. A. James, Pathogens and Global Health, 111:424-435. 2018.
Vector control strategies based on population modification of Anopheline mosquitoes may have a significant role in the malaria eradication agenda. They could consolidate elimination gains by providing barriers to the reintroduction of parasites and competent vectors, and allow ...
A cage replacement experiment involving introduction of genes for refractoriness to Plasmodium-yoelii-nigeriensis into a population of Anopheles gambiae (Diptera, Culicidae)
Tags: Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Population modification/replacementP. M. Graves and C. F. Curtis, Journal of Medical Entomology, 19:127-133. 1982.
A caged population of Anopheles gambiae was allowed to breed continuously and samples of the progeny were tested for susceptibility to Plasmodium yoelii nigeriensis. Males of a strain partially refractory to this parasite were released into the population for an 18-wk period. The ...
Transporting marker gene re (red eye) into a laboratory cage population of Aedes-aegypti (Diptera Culicidae), using meiotic drive at MD locus
Tags: Gene drive mechanisms, Population modification/replacement, Transmission distortionR. J. Wood, L. M. Cook, A. Hamilton and A. Whitelaw, Journal of Medical Entomology, 14:461-464. 1977.
An attempt has been made to use the meiotic drive gene MD to transport a marker re (redeye) into a laboratory population of the mosquito Aedes aegypti. The experiment produced an increase in re frequency, but also indicated that this gene has unexpectedly high fitness in the ...
Field trial of competitive displacement of Aedes-polynesiensis by Aedes-albopictus on a Pacific atoll
Tags: Ecology, Population modification/replacementL. Rosen, L. E. Rozeboom, W. C. Reeves, J. Saugrain and D. J. Gubler, American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 25:906-913. 1976.
Prior laboratory studies and field observations suggested that it might be possible to reduce the size of the population of, or eliminate, Aedes polynesiensis by the introduction of Aedes albopictus. The former mosquito is the principal vector of nonperiodic filariasis caused by ...
Population replacement in Culex fatigens by means of cytoplasmic incompatibility. Laboratory experiments with non-overlapping generations
Tags: Culex, Cytoplasmic incompatibility, Gene drive, Gene drive mechanisms, History, Malaria, Population modification/replacementC. F. Curtis and T. Adak, Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 51:249-255. 1974.
Bidirectional cytoplasmic incompatibility in the Culex pipiens complex appears to provide a mechanism for the replacement of a wild population by a strain refractory to filaria or a strain made partly sterile by a translocation. As a preliminary test of the feasibility of the ...
Possible replacement of malaria mosquitoes
Tags: History, Mosquitoes, Population modification/replacementS. Avery Jones, Transactions of The Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 51:469-470. 1957.
Sir,--The purpose of this letter is to draw the attention of research workers in control of mosquito colonies to the possible value of investigating the factors governing the infection of mosquitoes with parasites of human malaria. If a strain of a vector species could be ...
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