British geneticists are working on a genetically modified rat project to find out if such an approach could provide a more humane way of dealing with pests.
Figures released last week show that London City Councils receive hundreds of complaints about rats and mice every day, and in some areas of the city, local authorities are reporting at least 10% growth in rodent populations since last year.
Most pest control organizations and private firms use poison to control rodents. However, as practice shows, over time, rats become resistant to any, even the most powerful toxins and they eat this supplement with pleasure.
At the same time, the poison kills other animals and accumulates in the ecosystem, saturating the soil with the waste of the rat population.
Now experts at the University of Edinburgh believe that a process they call "gene controller" will help solve the problem. It works by spreading genes for infertility across the population, resulting in a catastrophic decline in the number of individuals over several generations.
A similar approach is already being tested in mosquitoes, helping control diseases such as malaria and Zika. But now scientists want to find out: can a “gene controller” work just as effectively in mammals?
The technology uses a standard DNA editing technique called CRISPR. It is based on a natural process by which bacteria fight viruses, binding the nucleic acids of foreign elements for their subsequent destruction by enzymes and other special proteins:
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In theory, rodents are genetically modified in the laboratory, after which they are released into the wild, where they could mate with members of the indigenous population.
Professor Bruce Willow of the Roslin Institute at the University of Edinburgh, where the famous Dolly sheep was created, puts it this way:
“For the first time, we have technologies that can reduce or eradicate pest populations in a humane and species-specific manner.
“CRISPR is perhaps the most exciting tool that biologists have ever received. In addition, it is also a great tool for us to understand generally how genes work, how they function in an animal or a plant.
It's time to explore what this technology can do.”
The UK is thought to be home to over 10 million rats, and pest control costs the UK approximately $ 1.2 billion each year.
The method proposed for rodents is known as x-shredding.
It is known that sex determination in all mammalian species is carried out by means of the XY chromosome pair: males carry both chromosomes in their cells, females contain only X chromosomes in their cells.
Scientists want to insert the bacterial gene code "x shredder" into the DNA of male rats, as a result of which proteins produced by this code will begin to destroy the X chromosomes in their germ cells. As a result, females will never appear in the offspring of these males, or there will be critically few of them to maintain the population. As a result, the population will die out.
However, there are some concerns that genetically modified animals will be able to leave their target population and impact other ecosystems.
Dr. Gus MacFarlane of the Roslin Institute, who is leading the project, put it this way:
“This is a new technology, so there are certain risks. But we are working to calculate them.
One of the biggest risks that worries us is the impact of altered genes on non-target objects.
Let's say we release this rat in New Zealand, and it somehow goes to Asia, which may have unforeseen environmental consequences. However, we have specific mitigation strategies to prevent this from happening.”
In the scientific journal Cell Press, the research team published a research article describing the project.
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Editorial comment: The news about genomunt rats, which geneticists were going to release from the laboratory, made a lot of noise on British forums, and not only conspiracy ones.
Most people think mostly in images inspired by Hollywood horror films and already imagine wolf-sized individuals running along the London Underground, devouring people. It is not a fact that this, as geneticists assure, cannot be, especially since in Britain giant rats are constantly found:
As you can see, giant rats are not characters from a horror movie, but a real fact. The photo shows rodents caught in Britain, but we have no doubt that they are everywhere. Therefore, it is difficult to imagine how such individuals will additionally mutate, having received new mutant genes. For example, devouring his smaller relative from the laboratory.
However, giant rats are just one option. Things can be much worse, since rats are an intermediate causative agent of many diseases, such as plague. A flea will bite a mutant rat and pump blood containing not just some pathogenic bacterium, but a bacterium that, being in the blood of a mutant rat, has inserted a gene code that kills the X chromosome in mammals. As a result, after a flea bite, a person also mutates: his germ cells will also begin to destroy the X chromosome.
By the way, history has described many precedents when in certain countries at one time or another historical time there were total failures in the birth of girls - only boys were born in people. Local shamans of that time were beating magic tambourines and broadcasting that this was a formidable sign and that it was going to war. Shamans can be understood: they did not teach about CRISPR in medieval universities, so it was difficult for shamans to imagine that some "gods" sometimes interfere a little with human DNA, correcting sociological events - so that there was someone to go on the attack on the fields of the impending war.
And the war, it seems, is really outlined because on the eve of the war not only more boys are born, but the population of rats is also increasing. And as reported in the article between the lines, rats began to actively breed also in London.
We follow the development of events.