Propagation of seminal toxins through binary expression gene drives could suppress populations

Juan Hurtado, Santiago Revale, Luciano M. Matzkin

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

Gene drives can be highly effective in controlling a target population by disrupting a female fertility gene. To spread across a population, these drives require that disrupted alleles be largely recessive so as not to impose too high of a fitness penalty. We argue that this restriction may be relaxed by using a double gene drive design to spread a split binary expression system. One drive carries a dominant lethal/toxic effector alone and the other a transactivator factor, without which the effector will not act. Only after the drives reach sufficiently high frequencies would individuals have the chance to inherit both system components and the effector be expressed. We explore through mathematical modeling the potential of this design to spread dominant lethal/toxic alleles and suppress populations. We show that this system could be implemented to spread engineered seminal proteins designed to kill females, making it highly effective against polyandrous populations.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number6332
JournalScientific reports
Volume12
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 2022

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Propagation of seminal toxins through binary expression gene drives could suppress populations'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this