Abstract:
Our paper published last year described the results of preliminary release experiments showing that engineered sterile male mosquitoes could mate with females in a wild population in the Cayman Islands. This trial was supported by simple simulation models indicating that sustained release of sufficient numbers of such males should substantially suppress a target population within a few weeks or months. In the following letter, we describe a field release experiment testing this proposition.
The sterile insect technique is an environmentally friendly, species-specific method of pest control that is used to successfully control several agricultural pest insects. Large numbers of sterile insects are released to mate with their wild counterparts and thereby reduce their reproductive potential. However, despite its attractive features, this technique is not in operational use against mosquitoes, in part because of damaging effects of sterilizing doses of radiation on the released mosquitoes. Following a similar principle, we have proposed that engineered males carrying a dominant lethal transgene could be released to mate with wild females; the resulting progeny would die as a result of the lethal effect of the transgene. We named this system RIDL (release of insects carrying a dominant lethal gene). The Aedes aegypti RIDL strain, OX513A, has a single transgenic sequence encoding a red fluorescent marker and tetracycline-repressible late-acting dominant lethality.
