Discovery of chemicals that mediate mosquito host-seeking behavior

Authors: Bernier, Ulrich

Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 3/4/2015
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Since 1942, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has developed repellents and insecticides for the U.S. military. A small thrust of this research program has been focused on discovery of attractants for use as lures in commercial traps designed to attract and capture arthropods of medical and veterinary importance. Research into the human produced attractants led to the discovery in 1968 that L-lactic acid on the skin is a primary attractant for Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. In the mid and late 1990s, gas chromatography/mass spectrometry was used to study the skin emanations of human volunteers. From the 277 compounds identified in this research, mosquito attractant mixtures were developed and were effective in trapping Ae. aegypti in laboratory bioassays. These studies led to an unexpected finding in May of 2000. Some compounds resulted in decreased to no attraction of mosquitoes to odors from blends or hosts that they would normally be attracted towards. Some of these nitrogen containing heterocycles are present on human skin at trace levels; however, when larger quantities of these compounds are introduced concurrently with human odors to mosquitoes in an olfactometer, the resultant effect is anosmia (inability to detect odors) and hyposmia (decreased ability to detect odors) in the test mosquitoes. This presentation will cover the research that led to this discovery of this novel means to deter mosquitoes from finding hosts.