The Overarching Impact of Insect Research on Humanity under the Context of CRISPR

Insects play essential roles in ecosystem functioning and have substantial impacts on human health, agriculture, and biotechnology. Many species provide critical ecological services by constituting the bulk of the lower trophic pyramid in most ecosystems, and they also maintain intricate relationships with humans. Their genetic diversity and biological complexity make them invaluable research subjects for advancing health, agriculture, and biotechnology. However, traditional CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) methods have long been limited to select model species, such as Drosophila melanogaster, thereby restricting broader use of CRISPR in insect research. However, recent advances in CRISPR use have overcome many of these limitations, enabling more efficient and precise genome editing across a wide range of insect taxa. This review summarizes key advancements in CRISPR applications among some major insect groups, including vector control in mosquitoes, disease modeling in fruit flies, silk and biomaterial engineering in Lepidoptera, pest management and biomaterial studies in beetles, and behavioral genetics in Hymenoptera. Together, these studies illustrate the expanding scope of CRISPR-based insect research and its growing scientific, environmental, and biotechnological impact.