Maternal Effect Dominant Embryonic Arrest
The Maternal Effect Dominant Embryonic Arrest (' Maternal Effect of the Dominant Embryonic Arrest ', MEDEA ) is created by a self-serving DNA that contains genes for both a toxin and an antidote and is found in some mealworms .
properties
The toxin produced in the mother kills the offspring that do not contain the medea gene, as they do not produce the antidote. This effect occurs in the offspring of heterozygous mothers if the father does not have the medea gene. This is how this gene spreads within a population . The toxin is a microRNA that blocks the expression of MyD88 . MyD88 is an essential gene for insect embryogenesis .
In laboratory tests, the medea gene spreads to the entire population within ten to twelve generations, starting with an occurrence of 25%. Therefore, approaches are being investigated to expand the medea gene to include resistance factors against insect-borne pathogens such as plasmodia ( causing malaria ) or arboviruses and to introduce them into insect populations. This is intended to make the insect populations resistant to these pathogens and thus interrupt the chain of infection .
The medea gene was named after the mythological figure Medea , who killed her children when she was abandoned.
Individual evidence
- ↑ MJ Wade, RW Beeman: The Population Dynamics of Maternal-Effect Selfish Genes. In: Genetics (1994), vol. 138, pp. 1309-1314. PMC 1206266 (free full text).
- ↑ Chen, CH et al .: A Synthetic Maternal-Effect Selfish Genetic Element Drives Population Replacement In Drosophila. In: Science (2007), Volume 316, Edition 5824, pp. 597-600. doi : 10.1126 / science.1566060 . PDF ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .
