WIKIMEDIA, ERIC DAY, VIRGINIA TECH, BLACKSBURG, VAGene drive is a technology that could squelch insect-borne diseases, by forcing deleterious traits engineered into the animals’ DNA to spread throughout populations by selective inheritance. Researchers have shown gene drive is possible in the lab, but there appears to be a catch: reporting in Science Advances last week (May 19), scientists found genetic variations in the sites targeted for CRISPR-based editing can render the intervention useless.
“Although rare, these naturally occurring genetic variants resistant to CRISPR are enough to halt attempts at population control using genetic technology, quickly returning wild populations to their earlier, ‘pre-CRISPR’ numbers,” said coauthor Michael Wade of Indiana University, in a press release.
And these variants aren’t researchers’ only challenge. Wade and his colleagues wrote in their paper that “mild inbreeding, which is a characteristic of many disease-vectoring arthropods,” had the same effect as these alleles that cause resistance to CRISPR.
The researchers set out to test how genetic variation might affect the efficacy of gene drive in the flour beetle, Tribolium castaneum. Using CRISPR, they targeted several genes in the beetle genome with the intent of harming the animal’s fitness. But rather than observing the gene ...
