MICROBIOLOGY: Mosquitoes Cut Short (Perspective)

Abstract

(1st paragraph) Forty years ago, as the first drug- and insecticide-based global malaria eradication plan was being abandoned, the concept was raised of using evolutionary genetics to fight vector-borne diseases like malaria, dengue, and river blindness (1). The idea was to exploit selfish genetic elements, entities that can spread through host populations by distorting normal Mendelian inheritance, thereby enhancing their own transmission. Theoretically, such elements could be used to drive antipathogen effector genes through mosquito populations. On page 141 of this issue, McMeniman et al. (2) report a major step in a lateral development of this approach. They have infected the mosquito species that transmit dengue viruses to humans with an inheritance-distorting bacterium that kills mosquitoes likely to be infectious.