Synthetically Engineered Medea Gene Drive System in the Worldwide Crop Pest, D. suzukii

Abstract

Synthetic gene drive systems possess enormous potential to replace, alter, or suppress wild populations of significant disease vectors and crop pests; however, their utility in diverse populations remains to be demonstrated. Here, we report the creation of the first-ever synthetic Medea gene drive element in a major worldwide crop pest, D. suzukii. We demonstrate that this drive element, based on an engineered maternal \"toxin\" coupled with a linked embryonic \"antidote,\" is capable of biasing Mendelian inheritance rates with up to 100% efficiency. However, we find that drive resistance, resulting from naturally occurring genetic variation and associated fitness costs, can hinder the spread of such an element. Despite this, our results suggest that this element could maintain itself at high frequencies in a wild population, and spread to fixation, if either its fitness costs or toxin resistance were reduced, providing a clear path forward for developing future such systems.