Mosquitoes Sniff Out Humans Even Without Smell Receptors, Finds Study
The study indicates that even with the loss of one or more receptors, the ability of mosquitoes to pick up human smells remains unaffected. This could have been a survival mechanism, say, researchers.
Researchers have found the mechanism that causes the insects to ¡®sniff¡¯ out humans of all other creatures, reveals a new report by The Guardian.
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Humans exude a fragrant cocktail of body odour, heat and carbon dioxide -- and this combo is different for different individuals. This fragrance is what mosquitoes use, however in their case, they can pick up on smells using several different pathways.
Researchers stumbled upon this after they were surprised to see that mosquitoes were able to find people and bite them after an entire family of human-odour sensing proteins was removed from their genome.
Researchers then looked at odour receptors in the antennae of mosquitoes that are also known to fuse to chemicals floating around the environment and signal to the brain via neurons.
Meg Younger, an assistant professor of biology at Boston University and one of the lead authors of the study explained, ¡°We assumed that mosquitoes would follow the central dogma of olfaction, which is that only one type of receptor is expressed in each neuron. Instead, what we¡¯ve seen is that different receptors can respond to different odours in the same neuron.¡±
This indicates that even with the loss of one or more receptors, the ability of mosquitoes to pick up human smells remains unaffected. This could have been a survival mechanism, say, researchers.
Younger added, ¡°The mosquito Aedes aegypti is specialised to bite humans, and it is believed that they evolved to do that because humans are always close to fresh water and mosquitoes lay their eggs in freshwater. We are basically the perfect meal, so the drive to find humans is extremely strong.¡±
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According to Younger, a better understanding of how they track humans and bite them will help reduce the spread of mosquito-borne diseases. One of the strategies she suggests is attracting them to traps to remove them from the biting population.
¡°If we could use this knowledge to understand how human odour is represented in the mosquito antennae and brain, we could develop blends that are more attractive to mosquitoes than we are. We could also develop repellents that target those receptors and neurons that detect human odour,¡± concluded Younger.
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