Biology subjects

Siddall, A.

Publications and source records attributed to Siddall, A..

2 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2023

Gene drive and genetic sex conversion in the global agricultural pest Ceratitis capitata

Homing-based gene drives are novel interventions promising the area-wide, species-specific genetic control of harmful insect populations. Here we characterise a first set of gene drives in a tephritid agricultural pest species, the Mediterranean fruit fly Ceratitis capitata (medfly). Our results show that the medfly is highly amenable to homing-based gene drive strategies. By targeting the medfly transformer gene, we also demonstrate two different mechanisms by which CRISPR-Cas9 gene drive can be coupled to sex conversion, whereby genetic females are transformed into fertile and harmless XX males. Given this unique malleability of sex determination, we modelled gene drive interventions that couple sex conversion and female sterility and found that such approaches could be effective and tolerant of resistant allele selection in the target population. Our results open the door for developing gene drive strains for the population suppression of the medfly and related tephritid pests by co-targeting female reproduction and shifting the reproductive sex ratio towards males. They demonstrate the untapped potential for gene drives to tackle agricultural pests in an environmentally friendly and economical way.

synthetic biology↗

bioRxiv2021

UNIGEMS: plasmids and parts to facilitate teaching on assembly, gene expression control and logic in E. coli

Synthetic biology is as an excellent vehicle for education, as it enables creative combination of engineering and molecular biology approaches for quantitative characterisations of the assembled constructs. However, there is a limited number of resources available for such applications in the educational context, where straightforward setup, easily measurable phenotypes and extensibility are of particular importance. To expand the availability of education-friendly resources to teach synthetic biology and genetic engineering, we developed Unigems, a set of 10 plasmids that enable out-of-the-box investigations of principles of gene expression control, as well as more complex designs a biological logic gate. The system uses a common high-copy plasmid backbone and a common set of primers to enable Gibson-assembly of PCR-generated or synthesised parts into a target vector. It currently has two reporter genes with either two constitutive (high- or low-level) or two inducible (lactose- or arabinose-) promoters, as well as a single-plasmid implementation of an AND logic gate. The Unigems system has already been employed in undergraduate teaching settings, during outreach events and for training of iGEM teams. All plasmids have been deposited in Addgene.

synthetic biology↗