Abiotic environments can modify the penetrance of transgene-based lethality systems for insect population control

Modern genetic biocontrol techniques for insect pest management, when compared to chemical insecticide spraying, offer high species specificity and reduced environmental impact. However, some of these methods require the environmental release of genetically modified insects. Because organisms exposed to different environments often show variability in phenotype and gene expression, it is likely that genetically modified insects will also experience environmentally mediated variation, potentially compromising pest control efficiency. This study examines the impact of temperature and nutrition on the early embryonic Tet-off conditional lethality system in Drosophila melanogaster. By independently manipulating parental and offspring environments, we assessed how treatment exposure influenced the probability of larval hatching and the transcript abundance of the transgenic system. Our findings revealed that (1) transgene performance distinctly responds to temperature and nutrition, (2) ther..., There are two kinds of experiments, larvae hatching and transcript abundance.
 
Larvae hatching - 3 files
 
Describes the frequency of hatching events in a sample of embryos.
 
Files:
AbioticStress-dataset-hatching-temperature.csv
AbioticStress-dataset-hatching-nutrition.csv
AbioticStress-dataset-hatching-nutrition.csv
 
Transcript abundance - 5 files
 
Describes the cycle threshold (CT) values of quantitative PCR experiments
 
Files:
TransgenicExpression-dataset-nutrition-adult.csv
TransgenicExpression-dataset-nutrition-development.csv
TransgenicExpression-dataset-temperature-adult.csv
TransgenicExpression-dataset-temperature-devo.csv
TransgenicExpression-dataset-temperature-embryo.csv
TransgenicExpression-dataset-temperature-shock.csv
 
This data is associated with manuscript RSPB-2025-0307, Fernan Rodrigo Perez Galvez, February 1, 2025., , # Abiotic environments can modify the penetrance of transgene-based lethality systems for insect population control

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.x0k6djhw3](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.x0k6djhw3)

## Description of the data and file structure

Two kinds of experiments were conducted, the larvae hatching datasets describe the number of fly embryos that hatch in a sample and the transcript abundance datasets describe the cycle thresholds (CTs) of the genes of interest (driver = \"TTA\", effector = \"HIDA5\", and reference = \"RP49\") in transgenic embryos during the activation of the transgene under study (see manuscript). 

Samples were collected in a series of blocks with multiple treatments in each of them. The experimental variables associated to the replication design and are for random effects in the statistical analysis are also included in each case.

### Files and variables

#### File: AbioticStress-dataset-hatching-nutrition.csv

**Description:** Describes the frequency of hatchin...,