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A team of scientists, including researchers at UCSan Diego, have developed a gene-editing method to block mosquitoes fromspreading malaria, it was announced today.Biologists Zhiqian Li and Ethan Bier from UCSD, and Yuemei Dong andGeorge Dimopoulos from Johns Hopkins University, created a CRISPR-based gene-editing system that ``changes a single molecule within mosquitoes, a minuscule but effective change that stops the malaria-parasite transmission process,'' a statement from the researchers read.
``Replacing a single amino acid in mosquitoes with another naturallyoccurring variant that prevents them from being infected with malarialparasites -- and spreading that beneficial trait throughout a mosquitopopulation -- is a game-changer,'' said Bier, a professor in UCSD's Departmentof Cell and Developmental Biology. ``It's hard to believe that this one tinychange has such a dramatic effect.''Mosquitoes are the deadliest animal on Earth. In 2023 alone, theyinfected 263 million people with malaria, resulting in nearly 600,000 deaths --80% of them children.Efforts to fight the disease have been hindered by growing insecticideresistance and increased resistance to malaria drugs. These setbacks weremade worse by the COVID-19 pandemic, which disrupted global anti-malariaprograms.Rather than targeting the parasite directly, the research team --which includes members from UC San Diego, Johns Hopkins, UC Berkeley, and the University of Sao Paulo -- modified mosquito genes to stop them from passing on the parasite when they bite.Genetically modified mosquitoes can still bite and take in parasitesfrom infected humans, but they no longer transmit those parasites to others.The key: a switch in a single amino acid that prevents the malaria parasitefrom reaching the mosquito's salivary glands, which is essential fortransmission.``The new system is designed to genetically spread the malariaresistance trait until entire populations of the insects no longer transfer thedisease-causing parasites,'' a statement from UCSD read.``The beauty of this approach lies in leveraging a naturally occurringmosquito gene allele,'' said Dimopoulos, a professor at the Johns HopkinsMalaria Research Institute.``With a single, precise tweak, we've turned it into a powerful shieldthat blocks multiple malaria parasite species and likely across diversemosquito species and populations, paving the way for adaptable, real-worldstrategies to control this disease.''In additional testing, the researchers found that ``although thegenetic switch disrupted the parasite's infection capabilities, the mosquitoes'normal growth and reproduction remained unchanged.''The insects carrying the newly inserted gene exhibited similar fitnessto those with the original amino acid. The researchers created a technique for mosquito offspring to genetically inherit the altered allele and spread it throughout their populations. This ``allelic-drive'' follows a similar system recently engineered in the Bier Lab that genetically reverses insecticide resistance in crop pests.``In that prior study, we created a self-eliminating drive thatconverts a population of fruit flies from being resistant to insecticides backto its native insecticide-susceptible state,'' Bier said. ``Then that geneticcassette just disappears, leaving only a re-wilded insect population.''Researchers are continuing to study why this single amino acid switchis so effective, and how exactly it prevents the malaria parasite frommigrating within the mosquito.
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