Figure 1.

Mendelian inheritance vs. gene drive inheritance. In mosquitoes, as for any other sexually reproducing organism, genetic elements in heterozygosis have a 50 percent chance of being inherited by the progeny and therefore its frequency remains constant in the population, or more likely, it is gradually lost if the transgene carries a cost (upper panel). A gene drive results in most or all progeny of heterozygotes receiving the driving genetic element, this allows the modification to spread rapidly throughout the population over a few generations (lower panel).