What is it about?
We present a technology in which the so-called friendly (symbiotic) bacteria inhabiting an insect’s gut are used like a Trojan horse to deliver a “switch off” command to chosen target insect genes. We exploited the technology in two very different insect species: to suppress the fertility of a tropical disease vector, and to induce larval mortality in a globally-invasive agricultural pest. As a means of biocontrol, the technology provides much greater target specificity than conventional pesticides.
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Why is it important?
New approaches are urgently needed to reduce the global burden of pest insects and to investigate insect biology and disease transmission. This new technology is one such approach.
Perspectives
Not only is this an important research tool to investigate non-model insects, it offers a novel and highly targeted form of biocontrol. Symbiotic bacteria have co-evolved with their insect hosts and are, to an extent, co-dependent. Using them to smuggle in information to turn off an essential insect gene means that we have a new way to control populations of pest insects without harming beneficial insects.
Professor Paul J Dyson
Swansea University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Symbiont-mediated RNA interference in insects, Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences, February 2016, Royal Society Publishing,
DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2016.0042.
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