Witherbee Avery D, Gamez Stephanie
Agragene Inc., St. Louis, MO, USA.
Sci Rep. 2025 Jan 31;15(1):3903. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-88598-w.
Drosophila suzukii is an invasive pest that affects many fresh, soft-skinned fruits such as strawberries and blueberries. To combat this pest, growers use various methods including insecticide sprays, biological control, and sanitation practices. However, these methods are becoming increasingly ineffective against D. suzukii due to increased resistance against insecticides and increasing labor costs. Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) has been used successfully to control many agricultural pests, but the use of irradiation, sex sorting, and the requirement to scale these insects make it costly to implement. pgSIT (precision guided Sterile Insect Technique) is a novel and efficient way to generate sterile males through genetic engineering and overcomes the drawbacks of traditional SIT. pgSIT has been implemented in multiple Dipteran insects, including D. suzukii, and has been shown to suppress wild insect populations. To further characterize sterile pgSIT males, we evaluated their fertility capacity, lack of mature sperm, and ability to induce a mating refractory period in D. suzukii wildtype females. In this study, we found that pgSIT sterile males do not produce mature sperm and can induce a refractory mating period in wildtype females. Furthermore, sperm DNA is not detected in the reproductive tracts of pgSIT-mated female reproductive tracts. These findings further support the penetrance of the pgSIT technology in D. suzukii and provide further supporting data to governing regulatory bodies in their evaluation of this technology.
铃木果蝇是一种入侵性害虫，会影响许多新鲜的软皮水果，如草莓和蓝莓。为了对抗这种害虫，种植者采用了各种方法，包括喷洒杀虫剂、生物防治和卫生措施。然而，由于对杀虫剂的抗性增加和劳动力成本上升，这些方法对铃木果蝇的效果越来越差。昆虫不育技术（SIT）已成功用于控制许多农业害虫，但辐射、性别分选以及大规模饲养这些昆虫的要求使其实施成本高昂。精准引导昆虫不育技术（pgSIT）是一种通过基因工程产生不育雄虫的新颖且高效的方法，克服了传统SIT的缺点。pgSIT已在包括铃木果蝇在内的多种双翅目昆虫中实施，并已证明能抑制野生昆虫种群。为了进一步表征不育的pgSIT雄虫，我们评估了它们的生育能力、缺乏成熟精子的情况以及诱导铃木果蝇野生型雌虫进入交配不应期的能力。在本研究中，我们发现pgSIT不育雄虫不产生成熟精子，并且能诱导野生型雌虫进入不应期。此外，在与pgSIT雄虫交配的雌虫生殖道中未检测到精子DNA。这些发现进一步支持了pgSIT技术在铃木果蝇中的渗透率，并为管理监管机构评估该技术提供了更多支持数据。
