Preliminary release of genetically modified moths

Abstract

Cotton growers in Arizona have given a US$1 million grant to the US Department of Agriculture and the University of California at Riverside to fund research into the control of the cotton pest, the pink bollworm larva of the moth Pectinophora gossypiella. The larvae are estimated to cost the US cotton industry US$200 million annually through crop damage and control costs. To track any cross-species genetic transfer, adult males carrying a marker gene for a green fluorescent protein from a jellyfish will be released. Ultimately, it is expected that moths carrying a dominant, repressible, lethal gene will be released. The effects of such genes are suppressed in the insects as they develop in the laboratory, but will kill the offspring of those they mate with in the field. In contrast to the use of insecticides, this method of control should not have any serious effects on local ecology because the destruction of the moths, which are not native to the USA, will be highly specific. JT