Researchers at Virginia Tech have found a way to turn female mosquitoes into males, which don't bite and therefore would halt the spread of deadly jungle diseases worldwide.
A gene has been discovered in mosquitoes that could change their sex, turning females that carry the dengue disease into harmless males.
Researchers at the Fralin Life Science institute at Virginia Tech have found that since females are the only ones who bite due to a need for blood for its eggs, turning mosquitoes into males could stop the spread of deadly diseases like dengue, yellow fever, and chikungunya, according to an Indian Express report.
They have identified a genetic switch called Nix in the mosquitoes species Aedes aegypti, and it controls the difference between efmales and males. These switches are a massive opportunity to attack the mosquito epidemic by focusing on its sex, as “maleness if the ultimate disease-refractory trait,” said Zhijian Jake Tu, who is a professor of biochemistry at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Virginia Tech, according to the report.
By injecting Nix into the embryos of mosquitoes, more than two-thirds of what were female mosquitoes developed male genitals. When it was removed, male mosquitoes developed female genitals.
This could lead the way to a point where mosquitoes could be successfully edited to produce harmless males, although more research will need to be done.
Aedes aegypti, a mosquito species from Africa, has been spread to other parts of the world by ship in the 1700s, resulting in an outbreak of terrible diseases that were originally confined to the African jungle. These mosquitoes are extremely adaptable to human environments, and are one of fraction of mosquito species that can transmit deadly viruses to humans.
The findings were published in Science Express.
