• Globally, fungal pathogens cause enormous crop losses and current control practices are not always effective, economical or environmentally sustainable. Tools enabling genetic management of wild pathogen populations could potentially solve many problems associated with plant diseases.
• A natural gene drive from a heterologous species can be used in the globally important cereal pathogen Fusarium graminearum to remove pathogenic traits from contained populations of the fungus. The gene drive element became fixed in a freely crossing population in only three generations.
• Repeat‐induced point mutation (RIP), a natural genome defence mechanism in fungi that causes C to T mutations during meiosis in highly similar sequences, may be useful to recall the gene drive following release, should a failsafe mechanism be required.
• We propose that gene drive technology is a potential tool to control plant pathogens once its efficacy is demonstrated under natural settings.

中文翻译：

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天然基因驱动器能否成为植物未来真菌病原体控制策略的一部分？

• 在全球范围内，真菌病原体会造成巨大的农作物损失，目前的控制方法并不总是有效，经济或环境可持续的。实现野生病原体种群遗传管理的工具可能会解决许多与植物病害相关的问题。
• 来自异源物种的天然基因驱动可用于全球重要的谷物病原体禾谷镰孢中，以从所包含的真菌种群中去除病原性状。基因驱动元件仅在三代中就固定在自由穿越的种群中。
• 重复诱导的点突变（RIP）是真菌中的一种天然基因组防御机制，在高度减数分裂过程中会在减数分裂过程中导致C到T突变，如果需要一种故障保护机制，则可能有助于召回释放后的基因驱动。
• 我们建议，一旦在自然环境下证明其功效，基因驱动技术便是控制植物病原体的潜在工具。