E-paper

Publication year: 2020

Journal: BioRxiv

DOI Link: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.05.08.076158

Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

Abstract: 

Mass releases of sterilized male insects, in the frame of sterile insect technique programs, have helped suppress insect pest populations since the 1950s. In the major horticultural pests Bactrocera dorsalis, Ceratitis capitata, and Zeugodacus cucurbitae, a key phenotype white pupae (wp) has been used for decades to selectively remove females before releases, yet the gene responsible remained unknown. Here we use classical and modern genetic approaches to identify and functionally characterize causal wp⁻ mutations in these distantly related fruit fly species. We find that the wp phenotype is produced by parallel mutations in a single, conserved gene. CRISPR/Cas9-mediated knockout of the wp gene leads to the rapid generation of novel white pupae strains in C. capitata and B. tryoni. The conserved phenotype and independent nature of the wp⁻ mutations suggest that this technique can provide a generic approach to produce sexing strains in other major medical and agricultural insect pests.

Harvard Citation style: Ward, C., Aumann, R., Whitehead, M., Nikolouli, K., Leveque, G., Gouvi, G., et al. (2020) A generic white pupae sex selection phenotype for insect pest control [Preprint]. BioRxiv, Article 2020.05.08.076158. https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.05.08.076158

APA Citation style: Ward, C., Aumann, R., Whitehead, M., Nikolouli, K., Leveque, G., Gouvi, G., Fung, E., Reiling, S., Djambazian, H., Hughes, M., Whiteford, S., Caceres-Barrios, C., Nguyen, T., Choo, A., Crisp, P., Sim, S., Geib, S., Marec, F., Häcker, I., ...Schetelig, M. (2020). A generic white pupae sex selection phenotype for insect pest control. BioRxiv. https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.05.08.076158