Study reveals how mosquitoes smell humans
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Researchers have identified some of the tools that mosquitoes use to smell her human prey and said Wednesday that their findings could help find better ways of repellents or catch or kill pests.
The researchers found 50 genes other than the mosquito Anopheles gambiae to human uses to smell delicious, and characterized how each responded differently to human scents only, including those that are known to attract mosquitoes.
Their analysis, published in the journal Nature, could improve the methods in great shape to repel mosquitoes, a field dominated by a few compounds.
Each gene controls a receptor, a molecular passage in this case attached to a molecule of human scent.
John Carlson of Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, and colleagues transferred the 50 genes inside the nerve cells of a type of fruit fly called Drosophila.
The fruit flies are well understood and do not try to smell humans, so any mosquito gene that produces a response to human scent is probably one used by mosquitoes to be guided to their carnivorous food.
“The results could have implications for the control of malaria, one of the world’s most devastating diseases,” wrote the team of Carlson.
Malaria, caused by a parasite, is spread by female mosquitoes that are in search of human blood. The disease kills about one million people annually, mostly children and most of them in Africa, according to the World Health Organization.
Mosquitoes also carry other varieties of human diseases, including dengue, West Nile virus, yellow fever and several different viruses that cause encephalitis, a brain inflammation that is often lethal.
In two other studies of the same journal, researchers said they have found a special protein called the plasmepsin V malaria parasite uses for entry into human red blood cells.
The experts added that blocking this protein could lead to better remedies against malaria
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