Abstract
Traps are increasingly being used to monitor and control mosquitoes, which are both a nuisance and vectors of infectious disease. However, existing traps are limited in effectiveness by their lures, often generic vertebrate host volatiles that are not optimized to attract mosquitoes. The objective of this study is to analyze a mechanism regulating the onset of host-seeking behavior in mosquitoes, with the aim to establish novel technology to rapidly identify novel salient volatiles to be used in integrated mosquito control management. This aim will be accomplished by a workflow that integrates transcriptome sequencing and deorphanization of key odorant receptor genes with behavioral analysis of the disease vector, Aedes aegypti. The project capitalizes on a novel finding - that malaria mosquitoes selectively ´switch on´ the host-seeking capability of their olfactory system once they have developed the competence to blood feed; my research group has observed an enhanced transcript abundance of select odorant receptor genes, correlated with an increased sensory and behavioral sensitivity to salient human volatiles detected by the receptors encoded by these genes, in host-seeking mosquitoes.
Sweden