Publication Date:
2011-04-22
Description:
Genetic methods of manipulating or eradicating disease vector populations have long been discussed as an attractive alternative to existing control measures because of their potential advantages in terms of effectiveness and species specificity. The development of genetically engineered malaria-resistant mosquitoes has shown, as a proof of principle, the possibility of targeting the mosquito's ability to serve as a disease vector. The translation of these achievements into control measures requires an effective technology to spread a genetic modification from laboratory mosquitoes to field populations. We have suggested previously that homing endonuclease genes (HEGs), a class of simple selfish genetic elements, could be exploited for this purpose. Here we demonstrate that a synthetic genetic element, consisting of mosquito regulatory regions and the homing endonuclease gene I-SceI, can substantially increase its transmission to the progeny in transgenic mosquitoes of the human malaria vector Anopheles gambiae. We show that the I-SceI element is able to invade receptive mosquito cage populations rapidly, validating mathematical models for the transmission dynamics of HEGs. Molecular analyses confirm that expression of I-SceI in the male germline induces high rates of site-specific chromosomal cleavage and gene conversion, which results in the gain of the I-SceI gene, and underlies the observed genetic drive. These findings demonstrate a new mechanism by which genetic control measures can be implemented. Our results also show in principle how sequence-specific genetic drive elements like HEGs could be used to take the step from the genetic engineering of individuals to the genetic engineering of populations.〈br /〉〈br /〉〈a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3093433/" target="_blank"〉〈img src="https://static.pubmed.gov/portal/portal3rc.fcgi/4089621/img/3977009" border="0"〉〈/a〉 〈a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3093433/" target="_blank"〉This paper as free author manuscript - peer-reviewed and accepted for publication〈/a〉〈br /〉〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Windbichler, Nikolai -- Menichelli, Miriam -- Papathanos, Philippos Aris -- Thyme, Summer B -- Li, Hui -- Ulge, Umut Y -- Hovde, Blake T -- Baker, David -- Monnat, Raymond J Jr -- Burt, Austin -- Crisanti, Andrea -- CA133831/CA/NCI NIH HHS/ -- RL1 CA133831/CA/NCI NIH HHS/ -- RL1 CA133831-01/CA/NCI NIH HHS/ -- RL1 CA133831-02/CA/NCI NIH HHS/ -- RL1 CA133831-03/CA/NCI NIH HHS/ -- RL1 CA133831-04/CA/NCI NIH HHS/ -- RL1 CA133831-05/CA/NCI NIH HHS/ -- RL1 GM084433/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/ -- RL1 GM084433-01/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/ -- RL1 GM084433-02/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/ -- RL1 GM084433-03/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/ -- RL1 GM084433-04/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/ -- RL1 GM084433-05/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/ -- T32 CA080416/CA/NCI NIH HHS/ -- Howard Hughes Medical Institute/ -- England -- Nature. 2011 May 12;473(7346):212-5. doi: 10.1038/nature09937. Epub 2011 Apr 20.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Imperial College London, Department of Life Sciences, South Kensington Campus, London, SW7 2AZ, UK.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21508956" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Animals
;
Animals, Genetically Modified
;
Anopheles gambiae/*genetics
;
Deoxyribonucleases, Type II Site-Specific/genetics
;
Female
;
Genes, Reporter/genetics
;
*Genetic Engineering
;
Genotype
;
Insect Vectors/*genetics
;
Male
;
Molecular Sequence Data
;
Mosquito Control/*methods
;
Saccharomyces cerevisiae Proteins/genetics
Print ISSN:
0028-0836
Electronic ISSN:
1476-4687
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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