scholarly journals Transforming Insect Population Control with Precision Guided Sterile Males

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikolay P. Kandul ◽  
Junru Liu ◽  
Hector M. Sanchez C. ◽  
Sean L. Wu ◽  
John M. Marshall ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sterile Insect Technique ◽  
Population Control ◽  
Disease Vectors ◽  
Genetic Technology ◽  
Adult Males ◽  
Agricultural Pests ◽  
Wild Populations ◽  
Environmentally Safe ◽  
Population Suppression ◽  
Control Insect

AbstractThe sterile insect technique (SIT) is an environmentally safe and proven technology to suppress wild populations. To further advance its utility, a novel CRISPR-based technology termed “precision guided SIT” (pgSIT) is described. PgSIT mechanistically relies on a dominant genetic technology that enables simultaneous sexing and sterilization, facilitating the release of eggs into the environment ensuring only sterile adult males emerge. Importantly, for field applications, the release of eggs will eliminate burdens of manually sexing and sterilizing males, thereby reducing overall effort and increasing scalability. To demonstrate efficacy, we systematically engineer multiple pgSIT systems in Drosophila which consistently give rise to 100% sterile males. Importantly, we demonstrate that pgSIT-generated males are fit and competitive. Using mathematical models, we predict pgSIT will induce substantially greater population suppression than can be achieved by currently-available self-limiting suppression technologies. Taken together, pgSIT offers to transform our ability to control insect agricultural pests and disease vectors.

scholarly journals Genetic analysis of medfly populations in an area of sterile insect technique applications

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rubén Sancho ◽  
Ana Guillem-Amat ◽  
Elena López-Errasquín ◽  
Lucas Sánchez ◽  
Félix Ortego ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Markers ◽  
Sterile Insect Technique ◽  
Ceratitis Capitata ◽  
Natural Populations ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Fruit Fly ◽  
Wild Populations ◽  
Genetic Sexing ◽  
Environmental Implications ◽  
Genetic Sexing Strains

AbstractThe sterile insect technique (SIT) is widely used in integrated pest management programs for the control of the Mediterranean fruit fly (medfly), Ceratitis capitata. The genetic interactions between the released individuals from the genetic sexing strains (GSS), used for SIT applications worldwide, and wild individuals have not been studied. Under the hypothesis that a number of Vienna GSS individuals released to the field might not be completely sterile and may produce viable offspring, we have analyzed medfly Spanish field populations to evaluate the presence of Vienna strain genetic markers. To this goal, we have used contrasted nuclear and mitochondrial genetic markers, and two novel sets of nuclear polymorphisms with the potential to be markers to discriminate between Vienna and wild individuals. Nuclear Vienna markers located on the 5th chromosome of Vienna males have been found in 2.2% (19 from 875) of the Spanish wild medfly females captured at the area where SIT is applied. In addition, a female-inherited mitochondrial Vienna marker has been found in two from the 19 females showing nuclear Vienna markers. The detection of several of these markers in single individuals represents evidence of the introgression of Vienna strain into natural populations. However, alternative explanations as their presence at low frequency in wild populations in the studied areas cannot be fully discarded. The undesired release of non-fully sterile irradiated GSS individuals into the field and their interactions with wild flies, and the potential environmental implications should be taken into account in the application of the SIT.

INFANTICIDE

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1978 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 90-90
Author(s):  
Martin Harris
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Population Control ◽  
Effective Means ◽  
Adult Males ◽  
American Museum ◽  
Relative Value ◽  
Demographic Survey ◽  
Female Children ◽  
Males And Females ◽  
Per Se

According to a demographic survey of over 600 primitive populations carried out by William T. Divale of the American Museum of Natural History, there is an extraordinary consistent imbalance of boys over girls in the junior and infant age ranks (up to about 15 years old). [Divale says] that many primitive groups follow a practice of overt female infanticide. Female children are suffocated or simply left unattended in the bush. But more often infanticide is covert, and people usually deny that they practice it.... Warfare inverts the relative value of the contribution made by males and females to a group's prospects for survival. By placing a premium upon maximizing the number of combat-ready adult males, warfare obliges primitive societies to limit their nurturance of females. It is this, and not combat per se, that makes warfare an effective means of controlling population growth.... Lacking any safe and effective means of contraception or abortion, primitive peoples must focus their institutionalized means of population control on individuals who are already alive. Children are the logical victims of these efforts—the younger the better—since number one, they can't resist; number two, there is less of a social and material investment in them; and number three, the emotional ties to infants are easier to cut than those between adults. Anyone who finds my reasoning depraved or "uncivilized" should read about eighteenth-century England. Gin-soaked mothers by the tens of thousands regularly dropped their babies into the Thames or wrapped them in the clothing of smallpox victims, left them in trash barrels, rolled over on top of them during drunken stupors, and otherwise contrived to shorten their babies' lives by direct or indirect means.

scholarly journals Capturing the transcription factor interactome in response to sub-lethal insecticide exposure

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria A Ingham ◽  
Sara Elg ◽  
Sanjay C Nagi ◽  
Frank Dondelinger
Keyword(s):  
Transcription Factors ◽  
Time Course ◽  
Lethal Dose ◽  
Resistance Mechanisms ◽  
Dynamic Bayesian Networks ◽  
Disease Vectors ◽  
Anopheles Coluzzii ◽  
Pest Species ◽  
Agricultural Pests ◽  
Insecticide Exposure

AbstractThe increasing levels of pesticide resistance in agricultural pests and disease vectors represents a threat to both food security and global health. As insecticide resistance intensity strengthens and spreads, the likelihood of a pest encountering a sub-lethal dose of pesticide dramatically increases. Here, we apply dynamic Bayesian networks to a transcriptome time-course generated using sub-lethal pyrethroid exposure on a highly resistant Anopheles coluzzii population. The model accounts for circadian rhythm and ageing effects allowing high confidence identification of transcription factors with key roles in pesticide response. The associations generated by this model show high concordance with lab-based validation and identifies 44 transcription factors regulating insecticide-responsive transcripts. We identify six key regulators, with each displaying differing enrichment terms, demonstrating the complexity of pesticide response. The considerable overlap of resistance mechanisms in agricultural pests and disease vectors strongly suggests that these findings are relevant in a wide variety of pest species.

Engineering the Composition and Fate of Wild Populations with Gene Drive

2021 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 407-434 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce A. Hay ◽  
Georg Oberhofer ◽  
Ming Guo
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Stability ◽  
Fitness Cost ◽  
Human Diseases ◽  
Gene Drive ◽  
Wild Populations ◽  
Genetic Composition ◽  
Gene Complexes ◽  
Ultimate Fate ◽  
Species Specific ◽  
Population Suppression

Insects play important roles as predators, prey, pollinators, recyclers, hosts, parasitoids, and sources of economically important products. They can also destroy crops; wound animals; and serve as vectors for plant, animal, and human diseases. Gene drive—a process by which genes, gene complexes, or chromosomes encoding specific traits are made to spread through wild populations, even if these traits result in a fitness cost to carriers—provides new opportunities for altering populations to benefit humanity and the environment in ways that are species specific and sustainable. Gene drive can be used to alter the genetic composition of an existing population, referred to as population modification or replacement, or to bring about population suppression or elimination. We describe technologies under consideration, progress that has been made, and remaining technological hurdles, particularly with respect to evolutionary stability and our ability to control the spread and ultimate fate of genes introduced into populations.

scholarly journals Suppressing mosquito populations with precision guided sterile males

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ming Li ◽  
Ting Yang ◽  
Michelle Bui ◽  
Stephanie Gamez ◽  
Tyler Wise ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Control System ◽  
Aedes Aegypti ◽  
Yellow Fever ◽  
Sterile Insect Technique ◽  
Life Stage ◽  
Molecular Genetic ◽  
Control Methods ◽  
Wild Populations ◽  
Principal Vector ◽  
Platform Technology

AbstractThe mosquito Aedes aegypti is the principal vector for arboviruses including dengue/yellow fever, chikungunya, and Zika virus, infecting hundreds of millions of people annually. Unfortunately, traditional control methodologies are insufficient, so innovative control methods are needed. To complement existing measures, here we develop a molecular genetic control system termed precision-guided sterile insect technique (pgSIT) in Aedes aegypti. PgSIT uses a simple CRISPR-based approach to generate flightless females and sterile males that are deployable at any life stage. Supported by mathematical models, we empirically demonstrate that released pgSIT males can compete, suppress, and even eliminate mosquito populations. This platform technology could be used in the field, and adapted to many vectors, for controlling wild populations to curtail disease in a safe, confinable, and reversible manner.

scholarly journals Engineering multiple species-like genetic incompatibilities in insects

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maciej Maselko ◽  
Nathan Feltman ◽  
Ambuj Upadhyay ◽  
Amanda Hayward ◽  
Siba Das ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life Stages ◽  
Agricultural Pests ◽  
Wild Type ◽  
Recessive Resistance ◽  
Wild Populations ◽  
Hybrid Lethality ◽  
Multiple Species ◽  
Type Strains ◽  
Gene Drives ◽  
New Strategies

AbstractSpeciation constrains the flow of genetic information between populations of sexually reproducing organisms. Gaining control over mechanisms of speciation would enable new strategies to manage wild populations of disease vectors, agricultural pests, and invasive species. Additionally, such control would provide safe biocontainment of transgenes and gene drives. Natural speciation can be driven by pre-zygotic barriers that prevent fertilization or by post-zygotic genetic incompatibilities that render the hybrid progeny inviable or sterile. Here we demonstrate a general approach to create engineered genetic incompatibilities (EGIs) in the model insect Drosophila melanogaster. Our system couples a dominant lethal transgene with a recessive resistance allele. EGI strains that are homozygous for both elements are fertile and fecund when they mate with similarly engineered strains, but incompatible with wild-type strains that lack resistant alleles. We show that EGI genotypes can be tuned to cause hybrid lethality at different developmental life-stages. Further, we demonstrate that multiple orthogonal EGI strains of D. melanogaster can be engineered to be mutually incompatible with wild-type and with each other. Our approach to create EGI organisms is simple, robust, and functional in multiple sexually reproducing organisms.

scholarly journals Temperature-Inducible Precision Guided Sterile Insect Technique

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikolay P Kandul ◽  
Junru Liu ◽  
Omar Akbari
Keyword(s):  
Drosophila Melanogaster ◽  
Gold Standard ◽  
Sterile Insect Technique ◽  
Population Control ◽  
Insect Population ◽  
Proof Of Concept ◽  
Control Programs ◽  
True Breeding ◽  
Genetic Cross ◽  
Automate Production

Releases of sterile males are the gold standard for many insect population control programs, and precise sex sorting to remove females prior to male releases is essential to the success of these operations. To advance traditional methods for scaling the generation of sterile males, we previously described a CRISPR-mediated precision-guided sterile insect technique (pgSIT), in which Cas9 and gRNA strains are genetically crossed to generate sterile males for release. While effective at generating F1  sterile males, pgSIT requires a genetic cross between the two parental strains which requires maintenance and sexing of two strains in a factory. Therefore, to further advance pgSIT by removing this crossing step, here we describe a next-generation Temperature-Inducible pgSIT (TI-pgSIT) technology and demonstrate its proof-of-concept in Drosophila melanogaster. Importantly, we were able to develop a true-breeding strain for TI-pgSIT that eliminates the requirement for sex sorting, a feature that may help further automate production at scale.

scholarly journals Odonata: Who They Are and What They Have Done for Us Lately: Classification and Ecosystem Services of Dragonflies

Insects ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael May
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Aquatic Ecosystems ◽  
Insect Flight ◽  
Economic Importance ◽  
Molecular Techniques ◽  
Disease Vectors ◽  
Agricultural Pests ◽  
Top Predators ◽  
New Information ◽  
And Control

Odonata (dragonflies and damselflies) are well-known but often poorly understood insects. Their phylogeny and classification have proved difficult to understand but, through use of modern morphological and molecular techniques, is becoming better understood and is discussed here. Although not considered to be of high economic importance, they do provide esthetic/spiritual benefits to humans, and may have some impact as predators of disease vectors and agricultural pests. In addition, their larvae are very important as intermediate or top predators in many aquatic ecosystems. More recently, they have been the objects of study that have yielded new information on the mechanics and control of insect flight.

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