Acta Entomologica Sinica ›› 2024, Vol. 67 ›› Issue (9): 1262-1274.doi: 10.16380/j.kcxb.2024.09.010

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Research progress in sex manipulation-based sterile insect techniques

PENG Wei#,*, OUYANG Xiang-Qin#, WEN Wen, ZHAO Yu-Jia, LIU Xing-Yu, YANG Fu, YUAN Zheng-Peng   

  1. (Key Laboratory of Protein Chemistry and Developmental Biology of Fish, Ministry of Education, State Key Laboratory of Developmental Biology of Freshwater Fish, Hunan Provincial Key Laboratory of Animal Intestinal Function and Regulation, Hunan International Joint Laboratory of Animal Intestinal Ecology and Health, Hunan Normal University, Changsha 410081, China)
  • Online:2024-09-20 Published:2024-10-22

Abstract:  Sterile insect technique (SIT) is a pest control method, in which radiation-sterilized males are released into the field to mate with wild females to produce nonviable offsprings. With the development of molecular biology techniques, such as CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing, sex manipulation-based sterile insect techniques such as precision-guided SIT (pgSIT), a combination of incompatible insect technique and sterile insect technique (IIT-SIT), and insect sex ratio distortion (SRD) have been successfully applied to the control of several important agricultural pests and mosquito vectors. In this article, we reviewed the recent research status of pgSIT, IIT-SIT and SRD, and discussed the pros and cons of these sex manipulation-based sterile insect techniques. In addition, we also introduced the molecular mechanism of bacteria- and virus-mediated male killing and its potential application in pest control, hoping to provide the theoretical support for sterile insect technique by targeting the insect sex determination.

Key words: Sterile insect technique, incompatible insect technique, precision-guided sterile insect technique, sex ratio distortion