Advances and challenges in synthetic biology for mosquito control

SC Weng, RA Masri, OS Akbari - Trends in parasitology, 2024 - cell.com
Mosquito-borne illnesses represent a significant global health peril, resulting in
approximately one million fatalities annually. West Nile, dengue, Zika, and malaria are …

Altering traits and fates of wild populations with Mendelian DNA sequence modifying Allele Sails

ML Johnson, BA Hay, M Maselko - Nature Communications, 2024 - nature.com
Population-scale genome modification can alter the composition or fate of wild populations.
Synthetic gene drives provide one set of tools, but their use is complicated by scientific …

Eliminating malaria vectors with precision-guided sterile males

RA Apte, AL Smidler, JJ Pai, ML Chow, S Chen… - Proceedings of the …, 2024 - pnas.org
Controlling the principal African malaria vector, the mosquito Anopheles gambiae, is
considered essential to curtail malaria transmission. However, existing vector control …

Cleave and Rescue gamete killers create conditions for gene drive in plants

G Oberhofer, ML Johnson, T Ivy, I Antoshechkin… - Nature Plants, 2024 - nature.com
Gene drive elements promote the spread of linked traits and can be used to change the
composition or fate of wild populations. Cleave and Rescue (ClvR) drive elements sit at a …

[HTML][HTML] Advancements and Future Prospects of CRISPR-Cas-Based Population Replacement Strategies in Insect Pest Management

Y Zhao, L Li, L Wei, Y Wang, Z Han - Insects, 2024 - mdpi.com
Simple Summary Many insects are categorized as agricultural pests due to their ability to
transmit diseases and damage crops, which results in significant economic losses. Scientists …

Establishing a dominant early larval sex-selection strain in the Asian malaria vector Anopheles stephensi

SC Weng, F Chen, M Li, S Lee, C Gerry… - Infectious Diseases of …, 2024 - Springer
Background Genetic biocontrol interventions targeting mosquito-borne diseases require the
release of male mosquitoes exclusively, as only females consume blood and transmit …

Establishing a Male-Positive Genetic Sexing Strain in the Asian Malaria Vector Anopheles stephensi

SC Weng, F Chen, M Li, S Lee, C Gerry, DC Turksoy… - …, 2024 - pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Genetic biocontrol interventions targeting mosquito-borne diseases require the release of
male mosquitoes exclusively, as only females consume blood and transmit human …

Allele Sails: launching traits and fates into wild populations with Mendelian DNA sequence modifiers

ML Johnson, BA Hay, M Maselko - bioRxiv, 2024 - biorxiv.org
Population-scale genome editing can be used to alter the composition or fate of wild
populations. One approach to achieving these aims utilizes a synthetic gene drive element …

Engineering drive-selection balance for localised population suppression with neutral dynamics

K Willis, A Burt - bioRxiv, 2024 - biorxiv.org
Whilst the release of sterile males has been highly successful in suppressing some pest
populations, it is impractical for other species due to the males disappearing after a single …

First-male sperm precedence in polyandrous Spodoptera frugiperda allows sterile males induce population suppression

H Sun, LA Bu, XY Zhang, ZR Zhang, LY Zhu, S Su… - bioRxiv, 2024 - biorxiv.org
Males respond to intense sperm competition by adapting reproductive strategies to promote
fertilization success, which is critical for population reproduction. Thus, investigating the …