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A transgenic female killing system for the genetic control of Drosophila suzukii

The spotted wing Drosophila (Drosophila suzukii) is an invasive pest of soft-skinned fruit crops. It is rapidly transmitted in Europe and North America, causing widespread agricultural losses. Genetic control strategies such as the sterile insect technique (SIT) have been proposed as environment-fri...

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Autores principales: Schetelig, Marc F., Schwirz, Jonas, Yan, Ying
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8217240/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34155227
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-91938-1
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author Schetelig, Marc F.
Schwirz, Jonas
Yan, Ying
author_facet Schetelig, Marc F.
Schwirz, Jonas
Yan, Ying
author_sort Schetelig, Marc F.
collection PubMed
description The spotted wing Drosophila (Drosophila suzukii) is an invasive pest of soft-skinned fruit crops. It is rapidly transmitted in Europe and North America, causing widespread agricultural losses. Genetic control strategies such as the sterile insect technique (SIT) have been proposed as environment-friendly and species-restricted approaches for this pest. However, females are inefficient agents in SIT programs. Here we report a conditional female-killing (FK) strategy based on the tetracycline-off system. We assembled sixteen genetic constructs for testing in vitro and in vivo. Twenty-four independent transgenic strains of D. suzukii were generated and tested for female-specific lethality. The strongest FK effect in the absence of tetracycline was achieved by the construct containing D. suzukii nullo promoter for early gene expression, D. suzukii pro-apoptotic gene hid(Ala4) for lethality, and the transformer gene intron from the Mediterranean fruit fly Ceratitis capitata for female-specific splicing. One strain carrying this construct eliminated 100% of the female offspring during embryogenesis and produced only males. However, homozygous females from these FK strains were not viable on a tetracycline-supplemented diet, possibly due to the basal expression of hid(Ala4). Potential improvements to the gene constructs and the use of such FK strains in an SIT program are discussed.
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spelling pubmed-82172402021-06-22 A transgenic female killing system for the genetic control of Drosophila suzukii Schetelig, Marc F. Schwirz, Jonas Yan, Ying Sci Rep Article The spotted wing Drosophila (Drosophila suzukii) is an invasive pest of soft-skinned fruit crops. It is rapidly transmitted in Europe and North America, causing widespread agricultural losses. Genetic control strategies such as the sterile insect technique (SIT) have been proposed as environment-friendly and species-restricted approaches for this pest. However, females are inefficient agents in SIT programs. Here we report a conditional female-killing (FK) strategy based on the tetracycline-off system. We assembled sixteen genetic constructs for testing in vitro and in vivo. Twenty-four independent transgenic strains of D. suzukii were generated and tested for female-specific lethality. The strongest FK effect in the absence of tetracycline was achieved by the construct containing D. suzukii nullo promoter for early gene expression, D. suzukii pro-apoptotic gene hid(Ala4) for lethality, and the transformer gene intron from the Mediterranean fruit fly Ceratitis capitata for female-specific splicing. One strain carrying this construct eliminated 100% of the female offspring during embryogenesis and produced only males. However, homozygous females from these FK strains were not viable on a tetracycline-supplemented diet, possibly due to the basal expression of hid(Ala4). Potential improvements to the gene constructs and the use of such FK strains in an SIT program are discussed. Nature Publishing Group UK 2021-06-21 /pmc/articles/PMC8217240/ /pubmed/34155227 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-91938-1 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Article
Schetelig, Marc F.
Schwirz, Jonas
Yan, Ying
A transgenic female killing system for the genetic control of Drosophila suzukii
title A transgenic female killing system for the genetic control of Drosophila suzukii
title_full A transgenic female killing system for the genetic control of Drosophila suzukii
title_fullStr A transgenic female killing system for the genetic control of Drosophila suzukii
title_full_unstemmed A transgenic female killing system for the genetic control of Drosophila suzukii
title_short A transgenic female killing system for the genetic control of Drosophila suzukii
title_sort transgenic female killing system for the genetic control of drosophila suzukii
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8217240/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34155227
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-91938-1
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