In 2016, for example, researchers reported that they had created a CRISPR /
Cas9 gene drive that forces a fertility - reducing gene modification into female Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes — which could quickly reduce local Anopheles populations if unleashed in the wild.
CRISPR /
Cas9 gene drives, as the new tools are called, are molecular cut - and - paste machines that can break regular rules of inheritance and get passed to more than 50 percent of offspring (SN: 12/12/15, p. 16).
Not exact matches
Gene drives became much easier to build with CRISPR /
Cas9.
In the past two years, researchers have lab - tested
gene drives in yeast1, fruit flies2 and mosquitoes3, 4 that are based on a
gene - editing technology called CRISPR —
Cas9.
When creating the antimalaria antibody
gene drive, the researchers had to inject
Cas9, guide RNAs and bits of DNA containing the
gene drive into the egg.
But only with the emergence of a genetic tool called CRISPR /
Cas9 — the bottle opener that unleashed the genie — has
gene drive technology offered the prospect of providing a speedy means to end some of the world's greatest health and ecological scourges.
Esvelt believes that immunizing mosquitoes against the malaria parasite, a positive application of CRISPR -
Cas9, is a better place to start than eradicating a species with a lethal
gene drive.
The approach hadn't seemed within close reach until geneticists last year demonstrated
gene drive in fruit flies and yeast by harnessing a
gene - editing technique called CRISPR /
Cas9.
With the advent of new, more efficient, and targeted
gene - editing techniques such as CRISPR /
Cas9,
gene modifications can, in principle, be spread throughout a population of living organisms intentionally and quickly via a
gene drive, circumventing traditional rules of inheritance and greatly increasing the odds that an altered
gene spreads throughout a population.
Cas9 may enable «RNA - guided
gene drives» to edit nearly any
gene in sexually reproducing populations (1).
Genomic changes can be reversed with subsequent
gene drives, though the cassette encoding the guide RNAs and possibly
cas9 will remain and any ecological changes resulting from the original genomic alteration will not necessarily be reversed.
The recent development of the CRISPR /
Cas9 system for genome editing enables the construction of RNA - guided
gene drives that may be capable of spreading nearly any alteration that can be made with
Cas9.
This is believed to be true given the results of previous RNA - seq experiments (1, 4, 5) along with a belief that the odds are very low that
Cas9 would have an off - target that lands in the promoter of another
gene, thereby
driving aberrant transcription.
This generic daisy
drive system, which would harbor the
Cas9 gene in the B position but lack any A elements, could be used in three different ways.
RNA - guided
gene drives based on CRISPR /
Cas9 have generated considerable excitement as a potential means of addressing otherwise intractable ecological problems.
Kevin Esvelt, Wyss Technology Development Fellow, Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard Medical School (
gene drives, CRISPR /
Cas9, phage - assisted continuous evolution, molecular evolutionary engineering) An inventor of technologies that harness evolution, Kevin studies ways of using molecular tools to alter populations and ecosystems.
To date,
gene drive elements based on
Cas9 have been demonstrated in yeast [3], fruit flies [4], and two species of mosquito [5][6].