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Updated: Jul 16, 2026

Population Replacement Strategies for Controlling Vector Populations and the Use of Wolbachia pipientis for Genetic Drive
Published on: July 4, 2007
A synthetic maternal-effect selfish genetic element drives population replacement in Drosophila
Chun-Hong Chen1, Haixia Huang, Catherine M Ward
1Division of Biology, Mail Code 156-29, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA.
Abstract:
One proposed strategy for controlling the transmission of insect-borne pathogens uses a drive mechanism to ensure the rapid spread of transgenes conferring disease refractoriness throughout wild populations. Here, we report the creation of maternal-effect selfish genetic elements in Drosophila that drive population replacement and are resistant to recombination-mediated dissociation of drive and disease refractoriness functions. These selfish elements use microRNA-mediated silencing of a maternally expressed gene essential for embryogenesis, which is coupled with early zygotic expression of a rescuing transgene.
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