Keywords: suzukii

Scientists are Gene-Editing Flies to Fight Crop Damage

E. Mullin,  WIRED,  2023.
In greenhouses in Oregon last month, researchers with the US Department of Agriculture began testing one such approach: sterilized male flies. The gene-edited bugs, made by St. Louis–based biotech company Agragene, are meant to suppress wild fly populations. The idea is that if ...
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CRISPR/Cas9-based split homing gene drive targeting doublesex for population suppression of the global fruit pest Drosophila suzukii

A. K. Yadav, C. Butler, A. Yamamoto, A. A. Patil, A. L. Lloyd and M. J. Scott,  Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A,  120:e2301525120. 2023.
Genetic-based methods offer environmentally friendly species-specific approaches for control of insect pests. One method, CRISPR homing gene drive that target genes essential for development, could provide very efficient and cost-effective control. While significant progress has ...
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To fight berry-busting fruit flies, researchers focus on sterilizing the bugs

M. Walling,  KTAL News.com,  2023.
Paul Nelson is used to doing battle with an invasive fruit fly called the spotted wing drosophila, a pest that one year ruined more than half the berries on the Minnesota farm he and his team run. In recent years, they’ve cut their losses closer to 5%, but it’s been ...
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CRISPR/Cas9-based gene drive could suppress agricultural pests

North Carolina State University,  Phys Org,  2023.
Researchers have developed a "homing gene drive system" based on CRISPR/Cas9 that could be used to suppress populations of Drosophila suzukii vinegar flies—so-called "spotted-wing Drosophila" that devastate soft-skinned fruit in North America, Europe and parts of South ...
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Assessing the hybridization potential between a hypothetical gene drive-modified Drosophila suzukii strain and non-target Drosophila species

J. Romeis, S. Wolf, J. Collatz, J. Enkerli and F. Widmer,  IOBC-WPRS Bulletin,  163:108. 2023.
Genetically engineered gene drives (GD) are a potentially powerful tool to control pest insects by population suppression or even elimination. Before living GD modified insects can be released into the environment, they must pass an environmental risk assessment (ERA). A key ...
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Modeling-informed Engineered Genetic Incompatibility strategies to overcome resistance in the invasive Drosophila suzukii

A. Sychla, N. R. Feltman, W. D. Hutchison and M. J. Smanski,  Frontiers in Insect Science,  2. 2022.
Engineered Genetic Incompatibility (EGI) is an engineered extreme underdominance genetic system wherein hybrid animals are not viable, functioning as a synthetic speciation event. There are several strategies in which EGI could be leveraged for genetic biocontrol of pest ...
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CRISPR, an eco-friendly technology, may detect crop pests

W. Adam,  list23,  2022.
Drosophila suzukii, an invading insect pest, is a threat to agricultural yields, especially to the production of fruits such as strawberries, cherries, plums, and grapes in western countries. Until now, control measures to stop the spread of D. suzukii have been inadequate. A ...
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Precision Guided Sterile Males Suppress Populations of an Invasive Crop Pest

N. P. Kandul, J. Liu, A. Buchman, I. C. Shriner, R. M. Corder, N. Warsinger-Pepe, T. Yang, A. K. Yadav, M. J. Scott, J. M. Marshall and O. S. Akbari,  GEN Biotechnology,  1:372-385. 2022.
The Drosophila suzukii invasion of western countries has created an immense agricultural and economic threat to crop production. Despite many attempts to suppress its population, D. suzukii continues to destroy soft-flesh fruits. Precision guided sterile insect technique (pgSIT) ...
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Field Suppression of Spotted Wing Drosophila (SWD) (Drosophila suzukii Matsumura) Using the Sterile Insect Technique (SIT)

R. A. Homem, Z. Mateos-Fierro, R. Jones, D. Gilbert, A. R. McKemey, G. Slade and M. T. Fountain,  Insects,  13. 2022.
Drosophila suzukii (spotted wing drosophila—SWD) is an economically important pest of soft and stone fruit worldwide. Control relies on broad-spectrum insecticides, which are neither fully effective nor environmentally sustainable. The sterile insect technique (SIT) is a ...
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Evaluation of Additional Drosophila suzukii Male-Only Strains Generated Through Remobilization of an FL19 Transgene

A. Yamamoto, A. K. Yadav and M. J. Scott,  Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology,  10. 2022.
Drosophila suzukii (D. suzukii) (Matsumura, 1931; Diptera: Drosophilidae), also known as spotted wing Drosophila, is a worldwide pest of fruits with soft skins such as blueberries and cherries. Originally from Asia, D. suzukii is now present in the Americas and Europe and has ...
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Stakeholder engagement to inform the risk assessment and governance of gene drive technology to manage spotted-wing drosophila

A. E. Kokotovich, S. K. Barnhill-Dilling, J. E. Elsensohn, R. Li, J. A. Delborne and H. Burrack,  Journal of Environmental Management,  307:114480. 2022.
Emerging biotechnologies, such as gene drive technology, are increasingly being proposed to manage a variety of pests and invasive species. As one method of genetic biocontrol, gene drive technology is currently being developed to manage the invasive agricultural pest ...
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Ecological vulnerability analysis for suppression of Drosophila suzukii by gene drives

C. R. Lalyer, L. Sigsgaard and B. Giese,  Global Ecology and Conservation,  32:e01883. 2021.
Synthetic gene drives are transgenic constructs that aim to bias heredity and thereby influence the characteristics and fate of populations regarding abundance and evolution. Aside from irreversible effects in ecosystems that could be triggered by the release of a gene drive, ...
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A transgenic female killing system for the genetic control of Drosophila suzukii

M. F. Schetelig, J. Schwirz and Y. Yan,  Scientific Reports,  11:12938. 2021.
The spotted wing Drosophila (Drosophila suzukii) is an invasive pest of soft-skinned fruit crops. It is rapidly transmitted in Europe and North America, causing widespread agricultural losses. Genetic control strategies such as the sterile insect technique (SIT) have been ...
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Pest reduction with female killers and sterile males

L. Mertz,  Good Fruit Grower,  2021.
New ways to fight spotted wing drosophila are in the works, thanks to new genetic engineering tools. These transgenic methods introduce new reproduction-hampering genes into male SWD, so that when they mate with females, the females either don’t have any young, or their female ...
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Genetically Encoded CRISPR components Yield Efficient Gene Editing in the Invasive Pest, Drosophila suzukii

N. P. Kandul, E. J. Belikoff, J. Liu, A. Buchman, F. Li, A. Yamamoto, T. Yang, I. Shriner, M. J. Scott and O. Akbari,  bioRxiv,  2021.03.15.435483. 2021.
Here we have developed transgenic strains that encode three different terminators and four different promoters to express Cas9 in both the soma and/or germline of SWD. The Cas9 lines were evaluated through genetic crossing to transgenic lines that encode single guide RNAs ...
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Mass-Rearing of Drosophila suzukii for Sterile Insect Technique Application: Evaluation of Two Oviposition Systems

F. Sassù, K. Nikolouli, S. Caravantes, G. Taret, R. Pereira, M. J. B. Vreysen, C. Stauffer and C. Cáceres,  Insects,  10. 2019.
Drosophila suzukii (Diptera: Drosophilidae) is an invasive pest of a wide range of commercial soft-skinned fruits. To date, most management tactics are based on spraying of conventional and/or organic insecticides, baited traps, and netting exclusion. Interest has been expressed ...
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