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Crucially, the genetic tweak involved did not appear to hinder the modified mosquitoes in any other way. On every measure of healthiness they performed as well as their wild counterparts. And even though they were firing blanks, they were still able to mate with females in the laboratory.
至關重要的是，所涉及的基因變異似乎并沒有以其他任何方式阻礙轉基因蚊子。在每一項健康指標上它們都表現得和野生同類一樣好。即便放的是空彈，但他們仍然能夠在實驗室里與雌性交配。
Although the details are not fully understood, says Dr Montell, once female mosquitoes have mated a few times, they become less receptive to doing so again. Mating with an infertile male is therefore not only fruitless in itself, but should also leave a female less interested in unmodified males in future. Sure enough, a series of experiments conducted in cages suggested that releasing between five and six genetically modified males for each wild male was enough to cut the number of reproducing females by half. Upping that ratio to 15:1 dropped it by 80%.
蒙特爾博士說，雖然細節還不完全清楚，但雌性蚊子一旦交配了幾次，它們就不太愿意再次進行交配。因此，與不育的雄性交配不僅徒勞無功，而且還會在未來讓雌性對未改動的雄性失去興趣。果不其然，在籠子里進行的一系列實驗表明，為每只野生雄性釋放5到6只轉基因雄性，就足以使繁殖中的雌性數量減少一半。將這一比率提高到15:1后，該比率下降了80%。
There is more work to do before field trials, says Dr Montell. But having established the principle, he is excited to see where the work might lead. That the target gene is found in both fruit flies and Aedes suggests it is likely to exist in other disease-carrying mosquitoes, too. And that the engineered males leave no offspring means fewer worries about any unintended consequences which might arise from releasing millions of genetically modified organisms into the environment.
蒙特爾博士說，在實地試驗之前還有更多的工作要做。但既然已經確立了原理，他很高興看到這項工作的發展方向。在果蠅和伊蚊中都發現了目標基因，這表明它可能也存在于其他攜帶疾病的蚊子中。而且，經過基因改造的雄性不會留下任何后代，這意味著人們更少擔心將數百萬轉基因生物釋放到環境中可能產生的意外后果。
More speculatively, the team is pondering whether it might be possible to create males which can outplay their un-engineered cousins at the mating game, despite being infertile. Improving on millions of years of evolution would usually be hard. Even if researchers could find an alteration that improved a male's attractiveness, it would probably reduce the animal's overall fitness. Such a genetic tweak would ordinarily be winnowed out by natural selection over subsequent generations. But because each generation of males is created anew in a laboratory, says Dr Montell, there is no long run to worry about. If the team can find the right mutation, such genetically engineered hommes fatales could give mosquito-suppression efforts an even bigger boost.
進一步推測，研究小組正考慮是否有可能創造出盡管不能生育，但卻能在交配中比它們的非工程近親表現得更好的雄性。要改進數百萬年的進化過程通常是很困難的。即使研究人員能找到一種方法來提高雄性的魅力，但也可能會降低動物的整體健康狀況。這樣的基因變異通常會在后代的自然選擇中被淘汰掉。但是蒙特爾博士說，因為每一代雄性都是在實驗室里新生的，所以不用擔心什么。如果研究小組能找到正確的突變基因，這種基因改造的致命蚊子可能會給抑制蚊子的努力帶來更大的推動。
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