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Verily project releases millions of factory-reared mosquitoes

Nature Biotechnology volume 36, pages 781–782 (2018)Cite this article

Fresno County in California has given the green light to the environmental release of millions of mosquitoes infected with a common bacterium, aimed at shrinking populations of the yellow fever mosquito Aedes aegypti. This type of mosquito, which first appeared in the state's Central Valley in 2013, is a disease vector for viruses such as dengue, West Nile, Zika and chikungunya (although currently none of these pathogens is circulating in the Fresno area). The 'Debug Fresno' program's Wolbachia pipientis-infected mosquitoes are grown in the laboratory by MosquitoMate in partnership with Alphabet-backed Verily Life Sciences. This year the project has ramped up, with thousands of bacteria-carrying mosquitoes released each day in more Fresno neighborhoods, including the city of Sanger. The aim is to surpass the 68% drop in female A. aegypti achieved last year, and so far, mid-season, the project has recorded a greater than 90% reduction in mosquito release areas relative to control sites, according to a Verily spokesperson. In Australia, the not-for-profit World Mosquito Program (WMP) has been running pilot trials in the city of Townsville that also use Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes to interrupt disease transmission (Gates Open Res. 2, 36, 2018). At the World Health Organization's instigation, the program is now running larger studies in Brazil and Colombia, as well as randomized trials in Indonesia and Vietnam (Adv. Exp. Med. Biol. 1062, 355–360, 2018).

A parallel endeavor pioneered by UK company Oxitec complements these efforts. Oxitec, a subsidiary of Intrexon, aims to reduce mosquito populations using lab-reared, genetically modified (GM) mosquitoes. The latter approach, termed RIDL (release of insects carrying a dominant lethal), involves the release of transgenic OX513A male mosquitoes, which are sterile as a result of a piggyBac-based transposon containing the tetracycline-repressible transcriptional activator, which is lethal when expressed at high levels in the absence of the antibiotic (Nat. Biotechnol. 26, 725, 2008). OX513A mosquitoes have been used to successfully reduce by >80% wild mosquito populations in Grand Cayman, Brazil and Panama.

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  1. Rochester, Minnesota

    Judith A Gilbert & Lisa Melton

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  1. Judith A Gilbert
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Gilbert, J., Melton, L. Verily project releases millions of factory-reared mosquitoes. Nat Biotechnol 36, 781–782 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt0918-781a

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