Invasion and migration of self-limiting gene drives: a comparative analysis

Recent advances in research on gene drives have produced genetic constructs that could theoretically spread a desired gene (payload) into all of the populations of a targeted species, with a single release in one place. This attribute has advantages, but also comes with risks and ethical concerns. There has been a call for research on gene drive systems that are spatially and/or temporally self-limiting. Here we use a population genetics model to compare the expected characteristics of three self-limiting gene drive systems: one-locus underdominance, two-locus underdominance, and daisy-chain drive. We find large differences between the selflimiting gene drives in the minimum number of engineered individuals that need to be released for successfully driving a payload into an isolated population. The daisy-chain system is the most efficient, requiring the smallest release, followed by the two-locus underdominance system. The one-locus underdominance system requires the largest releases for successful drive to occur. However, when the target population exchanges migrants with a non-target population, the gene drives requiring smaller releases suffer from higher risks of unintended . CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license peer-reviewed) is the author/funder. It is made available under a The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not . http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/159855 doi: bioRxiv preprint first posted online Jul. 5, 2017;