Mice Against Ticks: an experimental community-guided effort to prevent tick-borne disease by altering the shared environment
Name
rstb.2018.0105.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
899.65 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
6f7aff35af3ee7afe902b30c21c0f572
Author(s)
Buchthal, Joanna
Evans, Sam Weiss
Lunshof, Jeantine
Telford, Sam R.
Esvelt, Kevin Michael
Date Issued
March 2019
Journal
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B
Publisher
The Royal Society
Citation
Buchthal, Joanna et al. "Mice Against Ticks: an experimental community-guided effort to prevent tick-borne disease by altering the shared environment." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 374, 1772 (May 2019): 20180105. © 2019 The Authors
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Mice Against Ticks is a community-guided ecological engineering project that aims to prevent tick-borne disease by using CRISPR-based genome editing to heritably immunize the white-footed mice (Peromyscus leucopus) responsible for infecting many ticks in eastern North America. Introducing antibody-encoding resistance alleles into the local mouse population is anticipated to disrupt the disease transmission cycle for decades. Technology development is shaped by engagement with community members and visitors to the islands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, including decisions at project inception about which types of disease resistance to pursue. This engagement process has prompted the researchers to use only white-footed mouse DNA if possible, meaning the current project will not involve gene drive. Instead, engineered mice would be released in the spring when the natural population is low, a plan unlikely to increase total numbers above the normal maximum in autumn. Community members are continually asked to share their suggestions and concerns, a process that has already identified potential ecological consequences unanticipated by the research team that will likely affect implementation. As an early example of CRISPR-based ecological engineering, Mice Against Ticks aims to start small and simple by working with island communities whose mouse populations can be lastingly immunized without gene drive. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'The ecology and evolution of prokaryotic CRISPR-Cas adaptive immune systems'.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Media Laboratory
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2018.0105
