2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Historical genetic control strategies for pest insects have relied upon radiation or chemical mutagens to induce beneficial genetic changes (sterility) in a nontargeted fashion. The characterization of genes and genomes from a diverse number of eukaryotic, prokaryotic, and viral sources has enabled the development of a catalog of naturally occurring mechanisms for manipulating the genomes of organisms such as mosquitoes in highly specific ways. Here, we describe the technologies used to manipulate the mosquito genome, focusing on the strengths and weaknesses of each. While transposon-based integrations remain the gold standard for forward genetic experiments aimed at identifying new genetic elements and optimizing chromosomal position for engineered gene expression cassettes, the introduction of targeted mutations/integrations using the clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat/Cas9 system offers a new and exciting way to design reverse genetic experiments to take advantage of the volumes of genome sequence and expression data currently being generated. Both forward and reverse genetic approaches will benefit genetic control programs both directly, through the development of novel strains carrying beneficial traits, and indirectly, through the development of a greater understanding of the basic biology of mosquitoes.
