Concerning RNA-guided gene drives for the alteration of wild populations

By Kevin M. Esvelt, Andrea L. Smidler, F. Catteruccia, George M. Church. bioRxiv, 2014

754 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Gene drives may be capable of addressing ecological problems by altering entire populations of wild organisms, but their use has remained largely theoretical due to technical constraints. Here we consider the potential for RNA-guided gene drives based on the CRISPR nuclease Cas9 to serve as a general method for spreading altered traits through wild populations over many generations. We detail likely capabilities, discuss limitations, and provide novel precautionary strategies to control the spread of gene drives and reverse genomic changes. The ability to edit populations of sexual species would offer substantial benefits to humanity and the environment. For example, RNA-guided gene drives could potentially prevent the spread of disease, support agriculture by reversing pesticide and herbicide resistance in insects and weeds, and control damaging invasive species. However, the possibility of unwanted ecological effects and near-certainty of spread across political borders demand careful assessment of each potential application. We call for thoughtful, inclusive, and well-informed public discussions to explore the responsible use of this currently theoretical technology.

Subfields: Genetics, Molecular Biology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/563133aa1a67ad733ab466aa18697432e3886dce

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Citations in the corpus

The next generation of rodent eradications: Innovative technologies and tools to improve species specificity and increase their feasibility on islands (2015, background): “Gene drive systems can signiﬁcantly increase the spread of speciﬁc genetic elements (Esvelt et al., 2014; Safronova and Chubykin, 2013), like those designed for elimination of female offspring.”
CRISPR/Cas9 in Genome Editing and Beyond. (2016, methodology): “Cas9based genome editing technology also has been proposed as a possible method for controlling the populations of disease transmitters, such as mosquitoes that transmit malaria (172).”
Diverse evolutionary roots and mechanistic variations of the CRISPR-Cas systems (2016, background): “Finally, the potential for editing the human genome as well as the possibility of using Cas-based gene drives for ecosystem engineering (166) raise ethical concerns that must be fully considered.”
Scientists' warning on invasive alien species (2020, methodology): “…palindromic repeats) gene-editing technology, usually together with transgenes, could aid in management or eradication of invasive alien species (Esvelt et al., 2014) plus improvements in the method (e.g. Hu et al., 2018) have led to both enthusiasm (e.g. Harvey-Samuel, Ant, & Alphey,…”
CRISPR/Cas Genome Editing and Precision Plant Breeding in Agriculture. (2019, background): “This technique has great potential for public health and humanitarian purposes, such as reducing the burden of vector-borne diseases including malaria (30), although it does come with associated ethical and social concerns that cannot be avoided.”
Marine mammal conservation: over the horizon (2021, methodology): “…toolkit, with methods such as clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR/ Cas; Cong et al. 2013) and gene drives (Esvelt et al. 2014) opening the doors to de-extinction, more effective and/or humane eradication of pests/ invasive species/pathogens, vaccine…”
The potential for the use of gene drives for pest control in New Zealand: a perspective (2018, methodology): “Biosafety of CRISPR/Cas9 gene drives In their 2014 article, Esvelt and colleagues outlined a variety of uses for CRISPR/Cas9 gene drives in human health, agriculture and the environment (Esvelt et al. 2014).”
Gene Drives on the Horizon: Advancing Science, Navigating Uncertainty, and Aligning Research with Public Values (2016, background): “Scientific publications cite the benefits of gene drives, but also acknowledge that using gene drives “would represent an entirely new approach to ecological engineering” (Esvelt et al., 2014).”