Catch me if you can: a spatial model for a brake-driven gene drive reversal
L\'eo Girardin (UP11 UFR Sciences), Vincent Calvez (MMCS), Florence, D\'ebarre (IEES)
TL;DR
This paper models the spatial dynamics of gene drives and brakes in populations, showing conditions under which they coextinct or persist, with implications for controlling gene drive spread in nature.
Contribution
It introduces a reaction-diffusion model for gene drive and brake interactions, proving conditions for coextinction or persistence, and highlights the potential unstoppable nature of some drives.
Findings
Coextinction occurs when drive fitness ≤ 1/2 and brake fitness is high.
Drive and brake spread together when drive fitness > 1/2.
Numerical experiments support a conjecture of global coextinction under certain conditions.
Abstract
Population management using artificial gene drives (alleles biasing inheritance, increasing their own transmission to offspring) is becoming a realistic possibility with the development of CRISPR-Cas genetic engineering. A gene drive may however have to be stopped. "Antidotes" (brakes) have been suggested, but have been so far only studied in well-mixed populations. Here, we consider a reaction--diffusion system modeling the release of a gene drive (of fitness ) and a brake (fitness , ) in a wild-type population (fitness ). We prove that, whenever the drive fitness is at most while the brake fitness is close to , coextinction of the brake and the drive occurs in the long run. On the contrary, if the drive fitness is greater than , then coextinction is impossible: the drive and the brake keep spreading spatially, leaving in the invasion wake a…
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Taxonomy
TopicsEvolution and Genetic Dynamics · Gene Regulatory Network Analysis · Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation