Targeting the autosomal Ceratitis capitata transformer gene using Cas9 or dCas9 to masculinize XX individuals without inducing mutations.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Females of the Mediterranean fruit fly Ceratitis capitata (Medfly) are major agricultural pests, as they lay eggs into the fruit crops of hundreds of plant species. In Medfly, female sex determination is based on the activation of Cctransformer (Cctra). A maternal contribution of Cctra is required to activate Cctra itself in the XX embryos and to start and epigenetically maintain a Cctra positive feedback loop, by female-specific alternative splicing, leading to female development. In XY embryos, the male determining Maleness-on-the-Y gene (MoY) blocks this activation and Cctra produces male-specific transcripts encoding truncated CcTRA isoforms and male differentiation occurs.

Results

With the aim of inducing frameshift mutations in the first coding exon to disru

SUBMITTER: Primo P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7747381 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature