Gene editing "sterilizes" mosquitoes to avoid disease transmission

Mosquitoes are the "culprits" in spreading deadly diseases such as Zika, dengue fever and yellow fever
.
Recently, a new study uses gene editing technology to make male mosquitoes sterile to slow the spread of these diseases

Researchers from the U.
S.
Army Cooperative Biotechnology Institute and the University of California, Santa Barbara, used the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing tool to target male mosquito fertility-related genes to conduct "sterilization" experiments on Aedes aegypti
.
The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in the United States, explains how genetic mutations inhibit mosquitoes' ability to reproduce

Specifically, scientists use a control method called sterile insect technology to reproduce many sterile male mosquitoes and then release these insects
.
The mating of female mosquitoes with sterile male mosquitoes will affect the fertility of the former, thereby reducing the size of the next generation

Previously, scientists used chemicals or radiation to sterilize male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, but these methods would affect the health of mosquitoes so that they could not successfully mate with females, thus weakening their effectiveness
.
The research team hopes to find a more targeted, less collateral damage method, that is, to mutate a gene in mosquitoes, this gene will cause male sterility, but will not affect the insect's health

Craig Montell, a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, said that with the advent and continuous development of CRISPR/Cas9 technology, the time for us to study the sterilization technology of Aedes aegypti seems to be slowly mature
.

Through gene editing of male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, the researchers found that the mutant male mosquito does not produce sperm, but is otherwise completely healthy
.
The researchers introduced 15 mutant male mosquitoes into 15 female mosquitoes.

Next, the researchers plan to determine how time affects this effect

The results of the study showed that if female mosquitoes mate with mutant male mosquitoes for 4 hours, the fertility of female mosquitoes will be reduced to 20% of the normal level
.
After 8 hours, this figure began to stabilize at about 10%

In the future, the research team plans to continue to investigate the mating behavior and reproductive ability of mosquitoes in order to discover new ways to suppress the mosquito population

Related paper information: https://doi.