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Dryad

Development and testing of a novel Killer-Rescue self-limiting gene drive system in Drosophila melanogaster

Cite this dataset

Scott, Maxwell; Webster, Sophia; Vella, Michael (2020). Development and testing of a novel Killer-Rescue self-limiting gene drive system in Drosophila melanogaster [Dataset]. Dryad. https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.9zw3r229n

Abstract

Here we report the development and testing of a novel self-limiting gene drive system, Killer-Rescue, in Drosophila melanogaster. This system is composed of an auto-regulated Gal4 Killer (K) and a Gal4-activated Gal80 Rescue (R). Overexpression of Gal4 is lethal, but in the presence of R activation of Gal80 leads to much lower levels of Gal4 and rescue of lethality. We demonstrate that with a single 2:1 engineered to wildtype release, K drives R through the population and after nine generations more than 98% of the population carry R and less than 2% of the population are wildtype flies. We discuss how this simple Killer-Rescue gene drive system may be readily adapted for population replacement in a human health pest, Aedes aegypti, or for population suppression in an agricultural pest, Drosophila suzukii

Methods

Methods as described in the paper

Funding

NSF IGERT Program grant, Award: 1068676

National Science Foundation

National Science Foundation, Award: RTG/DMS-1246991