Fluorescent-based sex-separation technique in major invasive crop pest, Drosophila suzukii

Abstract

Insect population biocontrol methods such as the sterile insect technique (SIT), represent promising alternatives to traditional pesticide-based control applications. To use these strategies efficiently requires scalable sex separation techniques which are currently lacking in Drosophila suzukii , a prominent crop pest species. Having previously characterized a fluorescence-based sex-sorting technique in other pests, termed SEPARATOR ( S exing E lement P roduced by A lternative R NA-splicing of A T ransgenic O bservable R eporter), here we explore its potential applicability to Drosophila suzukii . Here, we engineer several strains of Drosophila suzukii encoding SEPARATOR constructs that allow for efficient sex selection in early larval stages.

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