Eliminating malaria vectors with precision-guided sterile males.

Controlling the principal African malaria vector, the mosquito Anopheles gambiae, is considered essential to curtail malaria transmission. However, existing vector control technologies rely on insecticides, which are becoming increasingly ineffective. Sterile insect technique (SIT) is a powerful suppression approach that has successfully eradicated a number of insect pests, yet the A. gambiae toolkit lacks the requisite technologies for its implementation. SIT relies on iterative mass releases of nonbiting, nondriving, sterile males which seek out and mate with monandrous wild females. Once mated, females are permanently sterilized due to mating-induced refractoriness, which results in population suppression of the subsequent generation. However, sterilization by traditional methods renders males unfit, making the creation of precise genetic sterilization methods imperative. Here, we introduce a vector control technology termed precision-guided sterile insect technique (pgSIT), in A. gambiae for inducible, programmed male sterilization and female elimination for wide-scale use in SIT campaigns. Using a binary CRISPR strategy, we cross separate engineered Cas9 and gRNA strains to disrupt male-fertility and female-essential genes, yielding >99.5% male sterility and >99.9% female lethality in hybrid progeny. We demonstrate that these genetically sterilized males have good longevity, are able to induce sustained population suppression in cage trials, and are predicted to eliminate wild A. gambiae populations using mathematical models, making them ideal candidates for release. This work provides a valuable addition to the malaria genetic biocontrol toolkit, enabling scalable SIT-like confinable, species-specific, and safe suppression in the species.

Eliminating Malaria Vectors with Precision Guided Sterile Males.

Controlling the principal African malaria vector, the mosquito Anopheles gambiae, is considered essential to curtail malaria transmission. However existing vector control technologies rely on insecticides, which are becoming increasingly ineffective. Sterile insect technique (SIT) is a powerful suppression approach that has successfully eradicated a number of insect pests, yet the A. gambiae toolkit lacks the requisite technologies for its implementation. SIT relies on iterative mass-releases of non-biting, non-driving, sterile males which seek out and mate with monandrous wild females. Once mated, females are permanently sterilized due to mating-induced refractoriness, which results in population suppression of the subsequent generation. However, sterilization by traditional methods renders males unfit, making the creation of precise genetic sterilization methods imperative. Here we develop precision guided Sterile Insect Technique (pgSIT) in the mosquito A. gambiae for inducible, programmed male-sterilization and female-elimination for wide scale use in SIT campaigns. Using a binary CRISPR strategy, we cross separate engineered Cas9 and gRNA strains to disrupt male-fertility and female-essential genes, yielding >99.5% male-sterility and >99.9% female-lethality in hybrid progeny. We demonstrate that these genetically sterilized males have good longevity, are able to induce population suppression in cage trials, and are predicted to eliminate wild A. gambiae populations using mathematical models, making them ideal candidates for release. This work provides a valuable addition to the malaria genetic biocontrol toolkit, for the first time enabling scalable SIT-like confinable suppression in the species.

A confinable female-lethal population suppression system in the malaria vector, Anopheles gambiae.

Malaria is among the world's deadliest diseases, predominantly affecting Sub-Saharan Africa and killing over half a million people annually. Controlling the principal vector, the mosquito Anopheles gambiae, as well as other anophelines, is among the most effective methods to control disease spread. Here, we develop a genetic population suppression system termed Ifegenia (inherited female elimination by genetically encoded nucleases to interrupt alleles) in this deadly vector. In this bicomponent CRISPR-based approach, we disrupt a female-essential gene, femaleless (fle), demonstrating complete genetic sexing via heritable daughter gynecide. Moreover, we demonstrate that Ifegenia males remain reproductively viable and can load both fle mutations and CRISPR machinery to induce fle mutations in subsequent generations, resulting in sustained population suppression. Through modeling, we demonstrate that iterative releases of nonbiting Ifegenia males can act as an effective, confinable, controllable, and safe population suppression and elimination system.