Manipulating sex determination pathways for pest control

基于CRISPR/Cas9的基因驱动可以将基因和理想的性状导入和传播到野生种群中，在害虫控制方面提供了广泛的潜在用途。例如，它们可以以有针对性和环境友好的方式传播不育症并减少农业害虫种群。基因驱动技术经常以性别决定金字塔中高度基础的元素为目标，以降低或杀死女性的健康。可以设计更有效和更可控的技术来操纵性命运的更高级别的调节者，以实现完全的性别转换(女性转变为男性)。这些基因驱动系统有可能在广泛的基因驱动系统中传播，在目标种群中传播，导致越来越多的性别比例扭曲，导致害虫种群迅速减少。该项目将开发新的基因驱动，将性别转换作为一种种群控制措施，将危害作物的雌性转化为良性雄性。该模型是一种全球性农业害虫--麦德蝇(Certis Capata)。该项目的目的是通过基因编辑来操纵蜻蜓的性别决定途径，以实现种群控制。基因编辑是一种基因驱动系统，在基因驱动系统中，雄性被转化为XX假狂犬病。然后，将对产生的设计进行测试和理论评估。

CRISPR/Cas9-based gene drives can introduce and spread genes and desirable traits into wild populations, offering a wide range of potential uses in insect pest control. For example, they can spread sterility and reduce agricultural pest populations in a targeted and environmentally friendly way. Gene drive technologies have often targeted highly basal elements of the sex determination pyramid to reduce the fitness of, or kill, females. More efficient and controllable technologies can be designed to manipulate higher-level regulators of sexual fate to effect complete sex conversion (female to male). These can potentially be deployed across a broad range of gene drive systems, to spread through a target population, causing a growing wave of sex ratio distortion, leading to rapid pest population reduction.This project will develop novel gene drives that utilise sex conversion as a population control measure by converting crop-damaging females into benign males. The model is a global agricultural pest, the medfly (Ceratitis capitata). The project aims to manipulate sex determination pathways in the medfly to effect population control through gene editing, a gene drive system in which males are converted into XX pseudomales. The designs produced will then be evaluated in tests and theory.