The research could be used to produce repellents for the insects.
has wondered why are these insects attracted to me? Now, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers may have an answer, according to a press release published last month.
They claim they have mapped specialized receptors on the insects’ nerve cells that are able to fine-tune their ability to detect particularly “welcoming” odors in human skin.“Understanding the molecular biology of mosquito odor-sensing is key to developing new ways to avoid bites and the burdensome diseases they cause,” said Christopher Potter, Ph.D., associate professor of neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Potter says the insects use multiple senses to find hosts , but odorant receptors are thought to help mosquitoes distinguish between animals and humans while gustatory receptors detect carbon dioxide. For this work, Potter and postdoctoral researchers Joshua Raji and Joanna Konopka focused on ionotropic receptors because of their ability to guide a mosquito to prefer one type of human skin over another by responding to acids and amines. They looked for them in the insects' antennae.They used a technique called fluorescent in situ hybridization, which pinpoints not the receptors themselves, but genetic material called RNA, a cousin of DNA.
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