Mosquito Preference for Human Blood 

Research has recently shown that domestic mosquitoes that carry yellow fever contain a version of an odor-detecting gene, AaegOr4, that is highly sensitive to human odor, more so then other mosquitoes who live in forests and carry yellow fever and thus prefer the blood of non-humans.

These findings were obtained through the conduction of an experiment consisting of three parts. First, forest and domestic mosquitoes were placed in large cages and allowed to bite either a guinea pig or a researcher's arm. Then the mosquitoes were allowed to choose between streams of air that had passed over a guinea pig or a human arm. Finally, to rule out other mosquito attractants such as exhaled carbon dioxide, mosquitoes were allowed to choose between a the scent of nylon sleeves that had been in contact with a human or a guinea pig. Throughout the entirety of the experiment, the domestic mosquitoes chose the human scent while the forest mosquitoes preferred the guinea pig scent.

Using these results, researchers then looked for differences in their antennae, which detect scent,  and found 14 genes that differ between forest and domestic mosquitoes, two of them being odor receptors Or4 and Or103. Next, researchers transferred these genes into fruit fly neurons and found that the neurons got excited when exposed to human scent, but did not get excited when exposed to guinea pig odor.

Having this knowledge is very beneficial and can make it possible to better control mosquito preference for human blood and stem yellow fever. This also might be linked to why other types of mosquitoes, like those that carry malaria, prefer human blood.


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