Engineered sex distortion in the global agricultural pest Ceratitis capitata

• Published in: bioRxiv
• Main Authors: Meccariello, Angela, Krsticevic, Flavia, Colonna, Rita, Giuseppe Del Corsano, Fasulo, Barbara, Philippos Aris Papathanos, Windbichler, Nikolai
• Format: Paper
• Language: English
• Published: Cold Spring Harbor Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press 07.08.2020; Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
• Edition: 1.1
• Subjects: Ceratitis capitata; CRISPR; Gametogenesis; Genomes; Males; Sex ratio; Spermatogenesis; Strains (organisms); Synthetic Biology; X chromosomes
• ISSN: 2692-8205; 2692-8205
• DOI: 10.1101/2020.08.07.240226

Genetic sex ratio distorters have potential for the area-wide control of harmful insect populations. Endonucleases targeting the X-chromosome and whose activity is restricted to male gametogenesis have recently been pioneered as a means to engineer such traits. Here we enabled endogenous CRISPR/Cas9 and CRISPR/Cas12a activity during spermatogenesis of the Mediterranean fruit fly Ceratitis capitata, a worldwide agricultural pest of extensive economic significance. In the absence of a chromosome-level assembly, we analysed long and short-read genome sequencing data from males and females to identify two clusters of abundant and X-chromosome specific sequence repeats. When targeted by gRNAs in conjunction with Cas9 they yielded a significant and consistent distortion of the sex ratio in independent transgenic strains and a combination of distorters induced a strong bias towards males (~80%). Our results demonstrate the design of sex distorters in a non-model organism and suggest that strains with characteristics suitable for field application could be developed for a range of medically or agriculturally relevant insect species. Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. Footnotes * https://github.com/genome-traffic/medflyXpaper