Rat Wolves
In Britain, mutant rats can be bred to solve the problem with rodents
Nina Must, theUK.one
Scientists decided to find out whether mutated rats can provide a more humane method of pest control.
Figures released last week show that London councils receive 100 complaints about rats and mice every day, and some local authorities report a 10% increase in the number of rodents since last year.
In most cases, poison is used to combat them, but rats quickly get used to even the strongest toxins, whereas other animals can suffer from them.
Experts from the University of Edinburgh believe that a process known as gene drive can solve the problem. It spreads infertility genes among the population, which leads to a catastrophic decrease in the number of rats and mice after several generations.
A similar approach is already being tested on mosquitoes to help control diseases such as malaria and Zika fever. But now scientists want to know if it applies to mammals.
The technology uses a DNA editing technique called Crispr, a natural process during which bacteria fight viruses by cutting them off from DNA.
Rodents are genetically modified in the laboratory before being released into the wild, where they could mate with populations of rats and mice.
Professor Bruce Whitelaw from the Roslin Institute The University of Edinburgh, where Dolly the Sheep was created, said: "For the first time we have technologies that can reduce or destroy the pest population in a humane way. It's time to study the action of Crispr."
It is believed that there are more than 10 million rats in Britain, and £1.2 billion is spent on pest control every year. The method proposed for rodent control is known as x-shredding. Male mammals have an X and a Y chromosome, whereas female individuals need two X chromosomes.
Scientists want to put the x-shredder code in the DNA of male rats, which will destroy the X chromosome in their sperm, which means they will be able to transmit only the Y chromosome and will not have female individuals in their offspring. As the number of females will decrease, the rat population will decrease.
Figure from the article in Trends in Biotechnology – VM.
However, the researchers said that there is a possibility that mutant rodents may "escape" from the target population and "affect third-party ecosystems."
Gus McFarlane, a doctoral student at the Roslin Institute, who will lead the project, noted: "This is a new technology, so there are risks, and we are working to anticipate them. If we assume that our rat from New Zealand will escape to Asia, this may lead to unforeseen environmental consequences. But there are certain strategies that we could implement if this happened."
A group of researchers published an article in the journal Trends in Biotechnology, which outlines the essence of the new project (McFarlane et al., CRISPR-Based Gene Drives for Pest Control).
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