IT鈥橲 one in the eye for both Mendel and malaria.
Researchers have given malaria-resistant mosquitoes a gene that subverts Gregor Mendel鈥檚 rules of classical genetic inheritance.
Like humans, mosquitoes usually only pass one copy of each gene on to each of their offspring.
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But Anthony James at the University of California, Irvine, and his colleagues have used the CRISPR gene editing technique to create a 鈥済ene drive鈥�. This makes offspring carry two copies of a gene variant from one parent. It works by allowing an engineered gene 鈥� in this case, one that confers resistance to malaria 鈥� to insert a copy of itself into the corresponding chromosome inherited from the other parent.
This can make a specific version of a gene spread through a population much faster. The team found that 99.5 per cent of offspring inherited the resistance gene when engineered mosquitoes bred with normal ones (PNAS, ). This is double the best possible result by normal genetic inheritance. If such engineered mosquitoes were released into the wild, the resistance gene could stop malaria transmission.
聯Releasing these engineered mosquitoes into the wild could stop malaria transmission聰
But it鈥檚 very early days for the technology, says at Imperial College London. 鈥淭his gene drive approach has a lot of potential, but we鈥檙e talking 10 to 15 years.鈥�
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淢alaria鈥檚 nemesis鈥�