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

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

SUBMITTER: Hurtado J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9012762 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature