From Wuhan, genetic help against the fruit fly

The discovery that could help neutralize the eastern fruit fly (Batrocera dorsalis), feared for damage to agriculture in Asia and which also threatens the Italy. Published in the journal Nature Communications, the result is due to international research coordinated by Hongyu Zhang, from Huazhong Agricultural University in Wuhan, to which Italy collaborated.

"I heard Zhang two weeks ago and he told me that he was trying to leave the house as little as possible," the Italian geneticist who participated in the research, Giuseppe Saccone, of the Federico II University of Naples and currently visiting professor, told ANSA at the National University of Singapore.

Thanks to the genetic control of the eastern fly, the discovery constitutes an alternative to pesticides. It makes it possible to mass produce males.
The research team has indeed discovered the genetic mechanism that determines the male sex in the eastern fly which, explains Saccone, "is an invasive tefritide much feared for damage to agriculture in Asia, which could also colonize Italy. This is because l The insect comes out of the imported fruit and has been detected in Naples and Salerno, but fortunately it is not yet able to reproduce in our areas ".

The genetic mechanism is based on a special gene called miRNA-1-3p: "it is a regulatory gene, which acts through a small fragment of genetic information called microRNA and shuts down the downstream gene that determines sex in the tefritidi and many other insects feminine, "explained the researcher. The gene is activated in male embryos by the MoY gene, which the Saccone group identified a few months ago.

"Since the microRNAs are very small, we can think of making synthetic versions of them which, due to their small size, could easily be transferred inside the embryos, once artificially permeable with chemicals or electrical reactions". In this way, he concluded, "males would be obtained en masse which can then be sterilized with radiation and introduced into the agricultural crops to be protected, where once mated with the females they are incapable of generating offspring".