Researchers have pioneered more effective ways to stop mosquito malaria infections

Researchers at the University of California have used genetic technology to adopt a strategy known as “population modification” that uses the CRISPR-Cas9 gene drive system to introduce genes that prevent the transmission of parasites to mosquito chromosomes. Great progress has been made in controlling the spread of mosquitoes. Malaria parasite.

Adriana Adolfi, a late-doctor researcher at the University of California, Irvine, works with colleagues at UCI, UC Berkeley, and the University of California, San Diego to increase the number of mosquito carriers to transmit malaria parasites. We followed up on the group’s pioneering efforts to develop a CRISPR-based gene drive system for resistance. Efficacy of gene drive in female mosquito offspring.

“This work alleviates the major problem of the first gene drive system, which is the accumulation of drive tolerance. mosquito It can still infect malaria parasites. ” UCI vector biologist Anthony James is a co-principal investigator in the study, Professor Donald Bren of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics and Molecular Biology and Biochemistry.

“The second-generation gene drive system described in this paper can be applied to any of the thousands of systems. gene Professor Ethanvia of the University of California, San Diego, co-author of the Research and Science Director of the Tata Institute for Genetic Society, “is essential for insects to survive or reproduce. This system was developed in bees, but It can be easily transported to a wide range of insect species that act as mediators of catastrophic disorders such as Chagas disease, sleep disease, Leishmania disease, and Arbovirus disease. “

The research results are Nature Communications..

They describe a highly efficient second-generation version of the team’s original gene drive, developed for the Anopheles mosquito, a malaria vector mosquito in the Indo-Pakistani War. 2015 work, Minutes of the National Academy of SciencesWas the first demonstration of a CRISPR-based gene drive in mosquitoes.

In that first study, the gene drive was transmitted to about 99% of offspring when the parent with the gene drive was male, but 60-70 of the offspring when the parent with the gene drive was female. Only% was transmitted. .. A significant number of drive-resistant chromosomes are produced in women. This, in principle, may allow those women to continue to infect the parasite.

Adolfi and co-workers, the lead author of the new study, have solved the failure to drive women efficiently by equipping the gene drive with a functional copy of the target gene in which the drive is inserted. The normal functioning of this target gene is required in this mosquito species for the survival and fertility of the woman after she eats blood, and that function is usually disrupted when the driving system is inserted into the gene. I will.

The female mosquitoes obtained showed strong and consistent driving in population cage studies, with very little drive-resistant chromosome production. This strategy of inserting gene drives into genes that are essential for viability or fertility, while at the same time including functional genes that rescue loss of viability or fertility, is a common solution for driving resistance through women. I will provide a plan. Also, Catalytic converter The new system removes combustion pollution from the car and effectively eliminates genetic errors that occur in the driving process.

This gene drive system can now be used to design field-ready mosquito strains in combination with genes to stop parasite transmission. Thorough testing is required to demonstrate safety and effectiveness before proceeding to field testing.