Germline excision of transgenes in Aedes aegypti by homing endonucleases. Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • Aedes (Ae.) aegypti is the primary vector for dengue viruses (serotypes1-4) and chikungunya virus. Homing endonucleases (HEs) are ancient selfish elements that catalyze double-stranded DNA breaks (DSB) in a highly specific manner. In this report, we show that the HEs Y2-I-AniI, I-CreI and I-SceI are all capable of catalyzing the excision of genomic segments from the Ae. aegypti genome in a heritable manner. Y2-I-AniI demonstrated the highest efficiency at two independent genomic targets, with 20-40% of Y2-I-AniI-treated individuals producing offspring that had lost the target transgene. HE-induced DSBs were found to be repaired via the single-strand annealing (SSA) and non-homologous end-joining (NHEJ) pathways in a manner dependent on the availability of direct repeat sequences in the transgene. These results support the development of HE-based gene editing and gene drive strategies in Ae. aegypti, and confirm the utility of HEs in the manipulation and modification of transgenes in this important vector.

published proceedings

  • Sci Rep

altmetric score

  • 1

author list (cited authors)

  • Aryan, A., Anderson, M., Myles, K. M., & Adelman, Z. N.

citation count

  • 34

complete list of authors

  • Aryan, Azadeh||Anderson, Michelle AE||Myles, Kevin M||Adelman, Zach N

publication date

  • January 2013