Driving Mosquito Malarial Resistance
April 30th, 2007 Placozoan
WE TEND to think of a genome as geared solely towards growing, feeding, and protecting its owner and the owner’s offspring. In actuality the genome is rather like a battleground, the site of both intragenomic and intergenomic warfare. The maternal and paternal genomes in a new zygote compete, with the maternal genome trying to limit resources contributed to the embryo while the paternal genome tries to wrestle away as many resources as possible for its offspring. Genetic parasites can join this war between the sexes with an ulterior motive–to propagate copies of themselves. This can be done through meiotic drive, in which an X chromosome harboring a driving gene prevents the transmission of Y chromosomes in meiosis, or through methods that actually result in the death of offspring that do not inherit the driving gene. Now some researchers are attempting to harness this genomic warfare in order to reduce the spread of malaria.
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