Pest control and resistance management through release of insects carrying a male-selecting transgene

A - Papers appearing in refereed journals

Harvey-Samuel, T., Morrison, N. I., Walker, A. S., Marubbi, T., Yao, J., Collins, H. L., Gorman, K., Davies, T. G. E., Alphey, N., Warner,S., Shelton, A. M. and Alphey, L. 2015. Pest control and resistance management through release of insects carrying a male-selecting transgene. BMC Biology. 13, p. 49. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12915-015-0161-1

AuthorsHarvey-Samuel, T., Morrison, N. I., Walker, A. S., Marubbi, T., Yao, J., Collins, H. L., Gorman, K., Davies, T. G. E., Alphey, N., Warner,S., Shelton, A. M. and Alphey, L.
Abstract

Development and evaluation of new insect pest management tools is critical for overcoming over-reliance upon, and growing resistance to, synthetic, biological and plant-expressed insecticides. For transgenic crops expressing insecticidal proteins from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (‘Bt crops’) emergence of resistance is slowed by maintaining a proportion of the crop as non-Bt varieties, which produce pest insects unselected for resistance. While this strategy has been largely successful, multiple cases of Bt resistance have now been reported.

One new approach to pest management is the use of genetically engineered insects to suppress populations of their own species. Models suggest that released insects carrying male-selecting (MS) transgenes would be effective agents of direct, species-specific pest management by preventing survival of female progeny, and simultaneously provide an alternative insecticide resistance management strategy by introgression of susceptibility alleles into target populations. We developed a MS strain of the diamondback moth, Plutella xylostella, a serious global pest of crucifers. MS-strain larvae are reared as normal with dietary tetracycline, but, when reared without tetracycline or on host plants, only males will survive to adulthood. We used this strain in glasshouse-cages to study the effect of MS male P. xylostella releases on target pest population size and spread of Bt resistance in these populations.

Year of Publication2015
JournalBMC Biology
Journal citation13, p. 49
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.1186/s12915-015-0161-1
Open accessPublished as ‘gold’ (paid) open access
Funder project or codeDelivering Sustainable Systems (SS) [ISPG]
Publisher's version
Output statusPublished
PublisherBMC
Biomed Central Ltd
Copyright licenseCC BY
ISSN1741-7007

Permalink - https://repository.rothamsted.ac.uk/item/8v0xy/pest-control-and-resistance-management-through-release-of-insects-carrying-a-male-selecting-transgene

88 total views
90 total downloads
0 views this month
0 downloads this month
Download files as zip