Credit: Bier Lab, UC San Diego
Reversing insecticide resistance with a new type of gene-drive system: Treatment of fields with insecticides leads to the emergence of insecticide-resistant insect pests and reduced diversity of beneficial insects. A new proof-of-principle study published in Nature Communications shows that gene drives engineered to bias inheritance called allelic-drives can be applied in the absence of pesticide treatment to restore insecticide susceptibility and balanced natural levels of insect populations.