from the would-have-gotten-away-with-it-hadn't-been-for-those-pesky-mosquitoes dept.
Recently touted as a solution for mosquito borne illnesses like zika, dengue and chikayunga - gene driving mosquito populations to infertility isn't working out so great in the wild.
In late 2015, researchers reported a CRISPR gene drive that caused an infertility mutation in female mosquitoes to be passed on to all their offspring1. Lab experiments showed that the mutation increased in frequency as expected over several generations, but resistance to the gene drive also emerged, preventing some mosquitoes from inheriting the modified genome.
This is hardly surprising, says Philipp Messer, a population geneticist at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Just as antibiotics enable the rise of drug-resistant bacteria, population-suppressing gene drives create the ideal conditions for resistant organisms to flourish.
One source of this resistance is the CRISPR system itself, which uses an enzyme to cut a specific DNA sequence and insert whatever genetic code a researcher wants. Occasionally, however, cells sew the incision back together after adding or deleting random DNA letters. This can result in a sequence that the CRISPR gene-drive system no longer recognizes, halting the spread of the modified code.
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Millions of genetically modified mosquitoes could be released in the Florida Keys if British researchers win approval to use the bugs against two extremely painful viral diseases. Never before have insects with modified DNA come so close to being set loose in a residential U.S. neighborhood. "This is essentially using a mosquito as a drug to cure disease," said Michael Doyle, executive director of the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District, which is waiting to hear if the Food and Drug Administration will allow the experiment.
Dengue and chikungunya are growing threats in the U.S., but some people are more frightened at the thought of being bitten by a genetically modified organism. More than 130,000 signed a Change.org petition against the experiment.
Even potential boosters say those responsible must do more to show that benefits outweigh the risks. "I think the science is fine, they definitely can kill mosquitoes, but the GMO [Genetically Modified Organism] issue still sticks as something of a thorny issue for the general public," said Phil Lounibos, who studies mosquito control at the Florida Medical Entomology Laboratory. "It's not even so much about the science—you can't go ahead with something like this if public opinion is negative."
[More after the break.]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 11 2017, @08:10AM
For mosquitoes a generation is two weeks to a year. For humans it's 12 to 30 years. This can buy us some time.
(Score: 3, Informative) by art guerrilla on Saturday February 11 2017, @11:44AM
you mean those DFH who warned about the roundup-friendly gene-splicing escaping into the wild were fucking right ? ??
they have some nerve...
you mean those DFH who warned about ALL our corn being contaminated with GM corn supplies were fucking right ? ? ?
damn them for being right...
you mean the so-called golden rice miracle/debacle was based on lies and bullshit stats ? ? ?
um, korporations would never lie to us for economic gain...
all this luddite GMO bashing is based on being mean to korporations who only exist to serve us, how ungrateful we are...
(Score: 2) by Kilo110 on Saturday February 11 2017, @02:01PM
I can tell you dislike GMO foods, or maybe just proponents of them, but did you even read the article? Or even the summary at least?
This has nothing to do with GMO foods or the corporate boogiemen that make them. This is about a species evolving a way to get around a way to control their population size. It's the same concept when a bacteria evolves resistance to a specific antibiotic. The message of the story is that "life finds a way" and CRISPR isn't a magic bullet and has the same limitations as other control methods in that their target species can develop resistance.
At least read the article before working yourself up into a outraged huff and posting some irrelevant crap.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 11 2017, @03:42PM
This is about genetic engineering not actually working the way that the scientists and proponents claimed it would.
In this case, nobody really knows what the consequences are going to be other than the technique not working as well or as long as they were hoping for. But, if there's random base pairs filling the wholes, we don't really have any way of knowing what the resulting mosquitos are going to be like. If we're lucky, it's just junk DNA like much of the rest of the strands that don't seem to code for anything that's currently used.
If we're not lucky, then it'll result in something particularly nasty as a result.
But, the whole point here is that it's horribly reckless and irresponsible to be loosing these GMOs on the world without having done the research to know what they're releasing on the rest of us. We know those diseases are serious, we don't know what the consequences of releasing GMO insects is going to be. It could pretty much always be worse.
(Score: 2) by Kilo110 on Saturday February 11 2017, @03:52PM
"random base pairs filling "
"If we're not lucky, then it'll result in something particularly nasty as a result."
You know you're pretty much describing sexual reproduction. There's a chance of that happening every time an organism reproduces. That's the nature of evolution. Random mutations happen and they spread if they're advantageous.
This isn't a case of the GMO failing, it's a case of those with a mutation to render the CRISPR ineffective being naturally selected since those without the mutation are dying. There's a *huge* difference.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 11 2017, @05:13PM
Yes, this is a case of the GMO failing, the point of the GMO was supposed to be to remove these types of mosquitoes from the ecosystem, not to render them immune to the tool.
Also, sexual reproduction generally results in a random distribution of damage, not just random base pairs being inserted in the same place. That's a very big difference, especially in this case where the mutation leads to the mosquitoes being immune to the technique.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday February 11 2017, @05:18PM
What they are saying is that it seems that modifying things can produce unwanted results.
Why are we continuing to feck with things when past experience has shown us that we can expect the unexpected, especially when the only reason for fecking with them is to increase a corporations profits?
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Touché) by Justin Case on Saturday February 11 2017, @11:46AM
Occasionally, however, cells sew the incision back together after adding or deleting random DNA letters. This can result in a sequence that the CRISPR gene-drive system no longer recognizes, halting the spread of the modified code.
tl;dr: There's a virus in the virus that we introduced while trying to wipe out the virus.
isn't working out so great in the wild
But go ahead! Keep experimenting! Use the whole planet; you'll never get results like this in a tiny underfunded lab.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 11 2017, @11:58AM
> tl;dr: There's a virus in the virus that we introduced while trying to wipe out the virus.
That's not it at all. CRISPR only deletes genes, it does not add them.
This is about the DNA spontaneously repairing itself in some small number of cases and apparently that repairability is heritable.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 11 2017, @02:44PM
Well CRISPR splices genes at select locations. Genes can then be added in place of where a gene was spliced.
Anyways I was wondering how something like this will work long term. It may work at first but you're always going to have mosquitoes that don't acquire the gene and natural selection will favor them. So the modified mosquitoes will die off and the ones that aren't modified will survive. I guess they will have to keep on inserting modified mosquitoes into the environment which has its own associated costs. It's not a one time solution, it's a solution where they keep getting paid to keep inserting new mosquitoes into the environment.
and now it's a great solution because now when the mosquitoes build resistance they suddenly create a brand new solution that they can once again get a new patent on. Why strive for a more permanent long term solution when you can just keep getting temporarily solutions that will only work short term and then get a new patent on new solutions when the old ones eventually fail due to resistance. It's the patent system at work.