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. 2019 Aug;572(7767):56-61.
doi: 10.1038/s41586-019-1407-9. Epub 2019 Jul 17.

Incompatible and sterile insect techniques combined eliminate mosquitoes

Xiaoying Zheng #  1 , Dongjing Zhang #  1   2 , Yongjun Li #  1   3 , Cui Yang #  1   3 , Yu Wu #  1 , Xiao Liang  4 , Yongkang Liang  1   3 , Xiaoling Pan  4   5 , Linchao Hu  1 , Qiang Sun  1   4 , Xiaohua Wang  3 , Yingyang Wei  3 , Jian Zhu  3 , Wei Qian  3 , Ziqiang Yan  6 , Andrew G Parker  2 , Jeremie R L Gilles  2 , Kostas Bourtzis  2 , Jérémy Bouyer  2 , Moxun Tang  7 , Bo Zheng  8 , Jianshe Yu  8 , Julian Liu  3 , Jiajia Zhuang  1 , Zhigang Hu  6 , Meichun Zhang  1 , Jun-Tao Gong  9 , Xiao-Yue Hong  9 , Zhoubing Zhang  6 , Lifeng Lin  10 , Qiyong Liu  11 , Zhiyong Hu  12 , Zhongdao Wu  1 , Luke Anthony Baton  4 , Ary A Hoffmann  13 , Zhiyong Xi  14   15   16
Affiliations

Incompatible and sterile insect techniques combined eliminate mosquitoes

Xiaoying Zheng et al. Nature. 2019 Aug.

Abstract

The radiation-based sterile insect technique (SIT) has successfully suppressed field populations of several insect pest species, but its effect on mosquito vector control has been limited. The related incompatible insect technique (IIT)-which uses sterilization caused by the maternally inherited endosymbiotic bacteria Wolbachia-is a promising alternative, but can be undermined by accidental release of females infected with the same Wolbachia strain as the released males. Here we show that combining incompatible and sterile insect techniques (IIT-SIT) enables near elimination of field populations of the world's most invasive mosquito species, Aedes albopictus. Millions of factory-reared adult males with an artificial triple-Wolbachia infection were released, with prior pupal irradiation of the released mosquitoes to prevent unintentionally released triply infected females from successfully reproducing in the field. This successful field trial demonstrates the feasibility of area-wide application of combined IIT-SIT for mosquito vector control.

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