Journal
JOURNAL OF THEORETICAL BIOLOGY
Volume 577, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
ACADEMIC PRESS LTD- ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.jtbi.2023.111654
Keywords
Synthetic biology; Ecological engineering; Population genetics; Population dynamics; Extinction
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Gene drive technology shows potential for population control, but its release may have unpredictable consequences. The study suggests that the failure of suppression is a natural outcome, and there are complex dynamics among wild populations.
Population-suppressing gene drives may be capable of extinguishing wild populations, with proposed applications in conservation, agriculture, and public health. However, unintended and potentially disastrous consequences of release of drive-engineered individuals are extremely difficult to predict. We propose a model for the dynamics of a sex ratio-biasing drive, and using simulations, we show that failure of the suppression drive is often a natural outcome due to stochastic and spatial effects. We further demonstrate rock-paper- scissors dynamics among wild-type, drive-infected, and extinct populations that can persist for arbitrarily long times. Gene drive-mediated extinction of wild populations entails critical complications that lurk far beyond the reach of laboratory-based studies. Our findings help in addressing these challenges.
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