Data from: The Trojan Female Technique for pest control: a candidate mitochondrial mutation confers low male fertility across diverse nuclear backgrounds in Drosophila melanogaster

Pest species represent a major ongoing threat to global biodiversity. Effective management approaches are required that regulate pest numbers, while minimising collateral damage to non-target species. The Trojan Female Technique (TFT) was recently proposed as a prospective approach to biological pest control. The TFT draws on the evolutionary hypothesis that maternally-inherited mitochondrial genomes are prone to the accumulation of male, but not female, harming mutations. These mutations could be harnessed to provide trans-generational fertility-based control of pest species. A candidate TFT mutation was recently described in the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, which confers male-only sterility in the specific isogenic nuclear background in which it is maintained. However, applicability of the TFT relies on mitochondrial mutations whose male-sterilizing effects are general across nuclear genomic contexts. We test this assumption, expressing the candidate TFT-mutation bearing haplotype alongside a range of nuclear backgrounds and comparing its fertility in males, relative to that of control haplotypes. We document consistently lower fertility for males harbouring the TFT mutation, in both competitive and non-competitive mating contexts, across all nuclear backgrounds screened. This indicates that TFT mutations conferring reduced male fertility can segregate within populations, and could be harnessed to facilitate this novel form of pest control.

害虫物种持续对全球生物多样性构成重大威胁，当前亟需开发既能调控害虫种群数量，又能最大限度降低对非靶标物种附带损害的高效管控方案。特洛伊雌体技术（Trojan Female Technique, TFT）是近期提出的一种潜在生物害虫防控手段，该技术基于一项演化假说：母系遗传的线粒体基因组易于积累对雄性有害、却不会对雌性造成损伤的突变，此类突变可被用于实现基于生育能力的跨代害虫种群管控。近期研究在黑腹果蝇（Drosophila melanogaster）中发现了一种候选特洛伊雌体技术突变体，在其维持所用的特定同核基因背景下，该突变仅会引发雄性不育。然而，特洛伊雌体技术的实际应用，依赖于那些在不同核基因组背景下均能发挥雄性不育效应的线粒体突变。本研究针对该假设展开验证：将携带候选特洛伊雌体技术突变的单倍型与多种核背景进行组合表达，并以对照单倍型为参照，对比检测其在雄性个体中的生育能力差异。研究结果显示，在所有检测的核背景下，无论是竞争性还是非竞争性交配情境中，携带该突变的雄性个体生育能力均持续处于较低水平，这表明，能够降低雄性生育能力的特洛伊雌体技术突变可在种群中分离传播，且可被用于推动这种新型害虫防控技术的落地应用。