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Successful suppression of a field mosquito population by sustained release of engineered male mosquitoes

Nature Biotechnology volume 30, pages 828–830 (2012)Cite this article

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To the Editor:

Our paper published last year described the results of preliminary release experiments showing that engineered sterile male mosquitoes could mate with females in a wild population in the Cayman Islands1. This trial was supported by simple simulation models indicating that sustained release of sufficient numbers of such males should substantially suppress a target population within a few weeks or months2,3,4. In the following letter, we describe a field release experiment testing this proposition.

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Figure 1: Field site and mosquito releases in 2010.
Figure 2: Effect of periodic release of OX513A male mosquitoes on a wild population.

References

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Acknowledgements

We thank L. New and J. Renmant for assistance in egg production, Z. Ebanks and E. Ebanks for technical help in Grand Cayman, T. Matthews and E. Moxon for administrative support and all staff and students at the Mosquito Research Control Unit and Oxitec for their help and support during this study. We thank G. Labbé and P. Gray for comments on the manuscript and the Lands and Survey Department of the Cayman Islands Government for permission to use imagery and data. A.F.H. thanks Adapco, Bayer and Central Life Sciences for supporting her PhD studentship. I.B. and A.C. are PhD students supported by Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council Collaborative Awards in Science and Engineering. C.A.D. acknowledges the UK Medical Research Council for Centre funding support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Mosquito Research and Control Unit, Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands

    Angela F Harris, Nick Kelly & William D Petrie

  2. Vector Group, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Liverpool, UK

    Angela F Harris

  3. Oxitec Limited, Oxford, UK

    Andrew R McKemey, Derric Nimmo, Zoe Curtis, Isaac Black, Siân A Morgan, Marco Neira Oviedo, Renaud Lacroix, Neil Naish, Neil I Morrison, Amandine Collado, Jessica Stevenson, Sarah Scaife, Tarig Dafa'alla, Guoliang Fu, Caroline Phillips, Andrea Miles, Norzahira Raduan, Camilla Beech & Luke Alphey

  4. Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Isaac Black, Amandine Collado, Guoliang Fu & Luke Alphey

  5. Medical Entomology Unit, Infectious Diseases Research Centre, Institute for Medical Research, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

    Norzahira Raduan

  6. Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Medical Research Council Centre for Outbreak Analysis and Modelling, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London, St Mary's Campus, London, UK

    Christl A Donnelly

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Correspondence to Luke Alphey.

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Competing interests

Authors affiliated with Oxitec Ltd are staff or students of Oxitec and have employment, studentship support and/or equity interest in Oxitec. Oxitec and the University of Oxford own intellectual property related to the subject matter of this study. All other authors declare no competing interests.

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Harris, A., McKemey, A., Nimmo, D. et al. Successful suppression of a field mosquito population by sustained release of engineered male mosquitoes. Nat Biotechnol 30, 828–830 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt.2350

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