Genetic Mapping a Meiotic Driver That Causes Sex Ratio Distortion in the Mosquito Aedes aegypti

An endogenous meiotic driver in the dengue and yellow fever vector mosquito Aedes aegypti can cause highly male-biased sex ratio distortion in crosses from suitable genetic backgrounds. We previously selected a strain that carries a strong meiotic drive gene (D) linked with the maledetermining allele (M) on chromosome 1 in A. aegypti. Here, we performed segregation analysis of the M-D locus among backcross (BC1) progeny from a driver male and drive- sensitive females. Assessment of sex ratios among BC2 progeny showed; similar to 5.2% recombination between the M-D locus and the sex determination locus. Multipoint linkage mapping across this region revealed consistent marker orders and recombination frequencies with the existing reference linkage map and placed the M-D locus within a 6.5-cm interval defined by the LF159 locus and microsatellite marker 446GAA, which should facilitate future positional cloning efforts.