Work

Population suppression by release of insects carrying a dominant sterile homing gene drive targeting doublesex in Drosophila

Year: 2024

Type: article

Abstract: CRISPR homing gene drives can suppress pest populations by targeting female fertility genes, converting wild-type alleles into drive alleles in the germline of drive heterozygotes. fsRIDL (female-specific Release of Insects carrying a Dominant Lethal) is a self-limiting population suppression strategy involving continual release of transgenic males carrying female lethal alleles. Here, we propose an improved pest suppression system called "Release of Insects carrying a Dominant-sterile Drive" (RIDD), combining performance characteristics of homing drive and fsRIDL. We construct a split RIDD system in Drosophila melanogaster by creating a 3-gRNA drive disrupting the doublesex female exon. Drive alleles bias their inheritance in males, while drive alleles and resistance alleles formed by end-joining cause dominant female sterility. Weekly releases of RIDD males progressively suppressed and eventually eliminated cage populations. Modeling shows that RIDD is substantially stronger than SIT and fsRIDL. RIDD is also self-limiting, potentially allowing targeted population suppression.

Source: Nature Communications

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-52473-5

Authors: Weizhe Chen, Jialiang Guo, Yiran Liu, Jackson Champer

Institutions: Peking University, Center for Life Sciences, Tsinghua University

Language: English

Topic: Insect behavior and control techniques

Subfield: Insect Science

Field: Agricultural and Biological Sciences

Domain: Life Sciences

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $6,790

Funders: National Natural Science Foundation of China, Peking University