Dna, sesso delle mosche e gene editing: proteggere la frutta senza pesticidi

Many insect species are harmful to agriculture or human health and the climate change empowers the problem, allowing those invasive ones to migrate and colonize new geographic areas. A control method, alternative to chemical pesticides, based on genetics and species-specificity is the sterile insect technique (SIT), which consists in a frequent release of sterile males in the infested regions. In this essay, we will describe historical steps that led to the genetics of pest insects, aiming to improve SIT and to the identification of their sex determining genes. Furthermore, we will analyze the possibilities of their biotechnological use to their control, in the frame of CRISPR-Cas9.