Short-term suppression of Aedes aegypti using genetic control does not facilitate Aedes albopictus.

Background: Under permit from the National Biosafety Commission for the use of genetically modified organisms, releases of a genetically engineered self-limiting strain of Aedes aegypti (OX513A) were used to suppress urban pest Ae. aegypti in West Panama. Experimental goals were to assess the effects on a coexisting population of Ae.

Suppression of a Field Population of Aedes aegypti in Brazil by Sustained Release of Transgenic Male Mosquitoes.

The increasing burden of dengue, and the relative failure of traditional vector control programs highlight the need to develop new control methods. SIT using self-limiting genetic technology is one such promising method. A self-limiting strain of Aedes aegypti, OX513A, has already reached the stage of field evaluation.

Estimation of Aedes aegypti (Diptera: Culicidae) population size and adult male survival in an urban area in Panama.

Traditional mosquito control strategies rely heavily on the use of chemical insecticides. However, concerns about the efficiency of traditional control methods, environmental impact and emerging pesticide resistance have highlighted the necessity for developing innovative tools for mosquito control. Some novel strategies, including release of insects carrying a dominant lethal gene (RIDL®), rely on the sustained release of modified male mosquitoes and therefore benefit from a thorough understanding of the biology of the male of the species.

Genetic control of Aedes mosquitoes.

Aedes mosquitoes include important vector species such as Aedes aegypti, the major vector of dengue. Genetic control methods are being developed for several of these species, stimulated by an urgent need owing to the poor effectiveness of current methods combined with an increase in chemical pesticide resistance. In this review we discuss the various genetic strategies that have been proposed, their present status, and future prospects.

Fitness of transgenic mosquito Aedes aegypti males carrying a dominant lethal genetic system.

OX513A is a transgenic strain of Aedes aegypti engineered to carry a dominant, non-sex-specific, late-acting lethal genetic system that is repressed in the presence of tetracycline. It was designed for use in a sterile-insect (SIT) pest control system called RIDL® (Release of Insects carrying a Dominant Lethal gene) by which transgenic males are released in the field to mate with wild females; in the absence of tetracycline, the progeny from such matings will not survive. We investigated the mating fitness of OX513A in the laboratory.

Oral ingestion of transgenic RIDL Ae. aegypti larvae has no negative effect on two predator Toxorhynchites species.

Dengue is the most important mosquito-borne viral disease. No specific treatment or vaccine is currently available; traditional vector control methods can rarely achieve adequate control. Recently, the RIDL (Release of Insect carrying Dominant Lethality) approach has been developed, based on the sterile insect technique, in which genetically engineered 'sterile' homozygous RIDL male insects are released to mate wild females; the offspring inherit a copy of the RIDL construct and die.

Open field release of genetically engineered sterile male Aedes aegypti in Malaysia.

Background: Dengue is the most important mosquito-borne viral disease. In the absence of specific drugs or vaccines, control focuses on suppressing the principal mosquito vector, Aedes aegypti, yet current methods have not proven adequate to control the disease. New methods are therefore urgently needed, for example genetics-based sterile-male-release methods.

Malaria infection increases attractiveness of humans to mosquitoes.

Do malaria parasites enhance the attractiveness of humans to the parasite's vector? As such manipulation would have important implications for the epidemiology of the disease, the question has been debated for many years. To investigate the issue in a semi-natural situation, we assayed the attractiveness of 12 groups of three western Kenyan children to the main African malaria vector, the mosquito Anopheles gambiae. In each group, one child was uninfected, one was naturally infected with the asexual (non-infective) stage of Plasmodium falciparum, and one harboured the parasite's gametocytes (the stage transmissible to mosquitoes).