CRISPR Tools to Cut Down Disease Spread by Culex Mosquitoes

CRISPR technology has made gene editing cheap and feasible. Scientists have now developed cutting-edge CRISPR tools that help inhibit disease-causing mosquitoes.

Researchers from the University of California designed novel gene manipulation tools that arrest mosquitoes from causing diseases. As per the insights described in the journal Nature Communications, the research team worked on developing gene-editing tools to prevent the spread of deadly diseases by Culex mosquitoes.

Filariasis - Causes, Symptoms, Diagnosis and Treatment , FAQs
Filariasis is a parasitic disease transmitted by blood-feeding arthropods, mainly black flies and mosquitoes.

‘CRISPR gene-editing tools can be used to prevent the spread of infectious diseases by Culex mosquitoes. They can be applied to other disease-causing insects as well.’

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"My co-authors and I believe that our work will be impactful for scientists working on the biology of the Culex disease vector since new genetic tools are deeply needed in this field," said Gantz, an assistant research scientist in the Division of Biological Sciences at UC San Diego.

The cruel ‘Culex’

The culex mosquitoes pose a serious threat to African and Asian countries as they act as a vehicle that transmits roundworms that cause a serious disease called filariasis. The mosquitoes from this species are also known to spread the West Nile virus, Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV), and the Plasmodia that cause avian malaria in birds.

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CRISPR tools in action

Since the development of CRISPR tools, there have been many interesting insights into gene drives that focused on inhibiting pathogen-spreading mosquitoes such as Anopheles and Aedes species, which spread malaria, dengue, and other life-threatening diseases.

CRISPR Gene Editing can Treat Diseases Before Birth
For the first time, scientists have used CRISPR-Cas9 guided gene editing to prevent genetic disorders before birth. An effective tool was used for prenatal gene editing to edit out disease-causing genes in the fetus.

The research team of the present study developed a CRISPR-Cas9/guide-RNA expression "toolkit” from scratch exclusively for the mosquitoes from the Culex genus. The gene drive technology used here disables the capacity of mosquitoes to spread pathogens. This same theory can be applied to control other disease-spreading insects too.

"These modified gRNAs can increase gene drive performance in the fruit fly and could potentially offer better alternatives for future gene drive and gene-editing products in other species," concluded Gantz.

Test Your Knowledge on CRISPR
CRISPR/CAS Technology - Potential Cure For All Diseases

CRISPR/Cas9 (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) technology is a revolutionary gene cutting tool and has innumerable uses in medicine such as removing cancer or disease causing genes and inserting normal genes. Take this quiz to learn more about this novel technology.

Source-Medindia