Source: CTV News: March 30, 2019
Researchers in the U.S. claim to have discovered a new way to prevent mosquitoes from biting people by targeting a smell receptor located in their antennae that can detect human sweat.
The study, published Thursday in the journal Current Biology, reveals how the protein molecule, called IR8a, gives blood-sucking female mosquitoes the ability to sniff out people by sensing particular chemicals found in human sweat.
Senior author Matthew DeGennaro, a mosquito neurobiology researcher at Florida International University, said they focused on the IR8a gene found in Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, which transmit disease, because it was the only one expressed in the insects’ nose.
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https://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/mosquitoes-target-humans-to-bite-by-smelling-their-sweat-study-1.4356176