A drug-inducible sex-separation technique for insects

Nikolay P. Kandul, Junru Liu, Alexander D. Hsu, Bruce A. Hay and Omar S. Akbari ()
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Nikolay P. Kandul: University of California, San Diego
Junru Liu: University of California, San Diego
Alexander D. Hsu: California Institute of Technology
Bruce A. Hay: California Institute of Technology
Omar S. Akbari: University of California, San Diego

Nature Communications, 2020, vol. 11, issue 1, 1-10

Abstract: Abstract Here, we describe a drug-inducible genetic system for insect sex-separation that demonstrates proof-of-principle for positive sex selection in D. melanogaster. The system exploits the toxicity of commonly used broad-spectrum antibiotics geneticin and puromycin to kill the non-rescued sex. Sex-specific rescue is achieved by inserting sex-specific introns into the coding sequences of antibiotic-resistance genes. When raised on geneticin-supplemented food, the sex-sorter line establishes 100% positive selection for female progeny, while the food supplemented with puromycin positively selects 100% male progeny. Since the described system exploits conserved sex-specific splicing mechanisms and reagents, it has the potential to be adaptable to other insect species of medical and agricultural importance.

Date: 2020
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-16020-2

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