Investigating multiple types of resistance against a homing gene drive in European populations of Drosophila melanogaster

Gene drive technology may be a valuable tool for addressing several contemporary challenges, including combating disease vectors, conserving biodiversity, and controlling agricultural pests. Homing gene drives spread through a population by copying themselves onto the homologous chromosome in the germline of heterozygous individuals. However, it is possible that resistance will evolve against homing gene drives, especially if the goal is to suppress or eliminate a pest population so that resistance alleles have a large selective advantage over the gene drive. Resistance can result from a simple mutation at the drives target site, which is found in many studies but can potentially be avoided by improving drive design. However, a more complex polygenic type of resistance could also evolve through selection on standing genetic variation that affects the efficiency of the spread of the gene drive. In this study, we test an efficient homing gene drive in genetically diverse lines of Drosophila melanogaster, collected from across Europe by the DrosEU Consortium. We find that the gene drive shows considerable variability in homing efficiency, but that none of this variability can be ascribed to heritable genetic effects. Selection for complex resistance is thus unlikely and will be inefficient, probably still giving a gene drive enough time to fixate in the population. However, although our tested gene drive targets a highly conserved haploinsufficient gene with two gRNAs, we find simple resistance alleles in viable offspring. Half of these are the product of end-joining repair instead of homing and may still carry heavy fitness costs. However, the other half are the result of partial homing events. These alleles indicate that resistance could likely evolve against this gene drive in a simple, non-polygenic way. Therefore, more effective strategies may be required to address simple resistance mutations, whereas complex resistance may be unlikely to pose a substantial barrier to the employment of at least certain types of gene drive.