Researchers have discovered and tested a new technique to engender a heritable shutdown of male mosquitoes ability to sire female offspring. This could be a much more efficient and rapid way to engineer the extinction of mosquitoes since this trait can stably achieve fixation in any population. From the abstract:
Shredding of the paternal X chromosome prevents it from being transmitted to the next generation, resulting in fully fertile mosquito strains that produce >95% male offspring. We demonstrate that distorter male mosquitoes can efficiently suppress caged wild-type mosquito populations, providing the foundation for a new class of genetic vector control strategies.
5 Responses to “A synthetic sex ratio distortion system for the control of the human malaria mosquito”
June 18
Austin James ParishThis is excellent. I wonder if groups in support of protecting Anopheles will pop up if we become really successful with this – as with the guinea worm: http://www.deadlysins.com/guineaworm/
June 18
Maxim KesinChildren of Men. For mosquitos
June 18
Kelly Hoverocerous MacNeilldidn’t this happen in mass effect?
June 18
Alex Demarsh“Man, where are all the ladies? It’s a proboscis fest in here!”
June 18
Matt NetschThat was different Kelly Hoverocerous MacNeill. In mass effect, the genophage killed 99.9% of offspring, not made them all male. Also, they are targeting like 1 species if mosquito’s out of 3000 not the genocide of an entire sentient species.