First Gene Drive In Mammals Could Aid Vast New Zealand Eradication Plan (technologyreview.com)

wisebabo writes: Say goodbye to our little whiskered friends! There is an effort to wipe out not just any species, (there's been discussions to wipe out the mosquitos that carry Malaria), but a mammal. Specifically the house mouse which, along with other invasive species introduced by Westerners, have ravaged New Zealand's ecosystem. (Amongst other things they've rendered extinct many of the flightless birds there). They'll try using the "gene drive" in mammals, which is a new genetic weapon made possible by the editing system CRISPR-Cas9. Basically, it'll make all of the children of the genetically engineered mice male and then all of their children male and so on. This'll continue until there are no females left and the population will crash. If this is successful, they want to use this technique on other species until all of the predators on New Zealand are wiped out.

Comments

Good luck...

[xlsior]

...keeping it contained.

Those mice got onto the islands accidentally in the past, and one of them can just as easily accidentally end up on another island/continent where they can instigate those populations to crash as well. May take longer if it's just a single individual, but if the effects do indeed persist across future generations then it will grow into a tidal wave over time. Very hard to stop if let loose in an unintended area, and can end up crashing entire ecosystems.

Re:Good luck...

[xlsior]

Not really, as long as there are sufficient females from other, non-genetically altered branches, those strains should be more 'successful' in the quest for survival and eventually the genetically engineered ones will die out,

Um... No.
You are misunderstanding how this works:

The whole POINT of this is that is tips the balance of the scales: you start with countless non-genetically altered mice, and throw in a handful of engineered ones that only breed males, and will pass on the trait to their offspring.

The starting point on the island will be roughly 50% male, 50% female. All of the engineered mice will only create more males, no females. They will mostly breed with random, non-engineered mice, creating more engineered male mice in the process.

Now all of a sudden the the balance of mice on the island a generation later is 51% male, 49% female. Those 1% extra males will also pass on the all-male feature to their offspring as well, increasing the percentage of engineered mice and decreasing the percentage of 'normal' mice. The generation after that may be 53% male, 47% female. A few dozen generations later you will be close to seeing 100% male and 0% female. The chances of any random pairing of mice birthing female offspring becomes vanishingly small.
Existing females die of old age or predation without new females to replace them. Population numbers crash, and the species dies off completely on the island, except for maybe some small, physically isolated groups

Don't forget that each mice can create TONS of offspring, and those all interbreed again. They typically have 5-8 offspring at a time, and can have 5-10 litters a year. This happens FAST. The engineered feature will spread exponentially across the population, with no stopping it. It's an avalanche.

Re: Nature finds a way.

[Rei]

Tell that to all of the extinct species throughout history. If there's one thing the geological record shows us is that nature quite often *doesn't* find a way.

rst Gene Drive In Mammals Could Aid Vast New Zeala

[rickyslashdot]

OUCH ! I hate to be the 'fear monger' here, but with CRISPR genetic modification, the changes are incorporated into the germ-line of that species, and will be passed down from generation - to - generation. This is the actual plan for the project, and it is being introduced into MAMMALS. Well, humans are also mammals, and similar enough to mice that the mouse line of mammals is very often used as the initial test-bed for medical research targeted at humans. How long will it take this CRISPR modification to jump species-lines, either from virus-aided transfer, or through some form of deliberate weaponization processes?

Damn, I'm kinda' glad that I'm over 70, and hopefully won't be around when (IF) this extinction-level event happens. Granted, it will take multiple generations to spread throughout the global population, but a 'kill-switch' function, or even a more elegant technique involving a basic 'count-down' trigger that self-terminates after a certain number of generation transfers (similar to, and based on, the process of telomere shrinkage with each reproductive cycle), COULD be incorporated into the process in order to limit run-away disasters if the genetic alteration does get loose, or manages to cross species lines.

I shudder to think of the implications of this research being developed to the point that it could target ANY species, and then the inevitable acquisition of the techniques by radicalized, medically-competent , scientists with either deep-pocket private backers, or state-sponsored support.

One geographic transfer / escpe process that pops to mind is a bird, or other long distance traveller, that dumps fecal matter contaminated with this gene-line altering process still active in the biological waste, which then gets eaten by another scavenger (a REALLY HUNGRY individual), and . . . boom - - - the CRISPER agent is suddenly introduced into a population outside of the targeted area, and could very well move from a geo-bound area (like islands) to a wide-open continental arena.

OK, so this is a '. . . sky is falling' scenario, but EVERY precaution needs to be considered - and planned for - when introducing a process that is deliberately designed for total species-line extermination, and there is just no way that ALL escape options will ever be able to be covered with 100% reliability.

Enjoy your nightmares ! ! !

Re:Nature finds a way.

[quenda]

They had me at "New Zealand Eradication Plan".

Should not be hard, as the country is totally undefended.

Re:Why Mosquitos?

[quenda]

Why would they wipe out mosquitos instead of wiping out the true culprit: the malaria protozoa itself?

Gene drive techniques depend on sexual reproduction, but protozoa reproduce asexually, and can lay dormant as cysts.

Re:12 Monkeys

[LunaticTippy]

This technique would work especially well on bedbugs. They perform "traumatic insemination" which is using a knifelike penis to inseminate another bedbug through their exoskeleton. They are not very particular about the fertility status or even gender of the target. A surplus of males would effectively fuck everything to death.

Re: Nature finds a way.

[Anonymous Coward]

If they introduce a gene drive in mice in New Zealand, the likelihood of it spreading around the world is pretty high. Ships are still vectors for the spread of rodents, and mice live for a couple of years. Would have to have very stringent safeguards in place to prevent the spread.

Extreme caution is warranted. There is likely no stopping it once it happens.