Aedes aegypti females can transmit pathogens through their bite capable of causing dengue, encephalitis or yellow fever to humans, the disease that gives these mosquitoes their name.
Now, a team of researchers coordinated by experts from the Rockefeller University Neurogenetics and Behavior Laboratory, in New York, have revealed that these animals have a genetic peculiarity that makes them very sensitive to our aroma.
As indicated in the journal Nature , yellow fever mosquitoes have in their antennae a version of a gene involved in the perception of odors that is specially "tuned", so to speak, to sulfathon, a compound present in our natural perfume.
The scientists were able to determine that this gene, AaegOr4, is more abundant in "domestic" yellow fever mosquitoes, which live with humans , than in those that inhabit forests. These, on the contrary, feel more predilection for the blood of other animals. Carolyn McBride, professor at the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University, who participated in the study, highlights that, in the future, this finding could serve to unravel the genetic basis that explains the changes in eating habits of these insects and design new strategies to combat them.
Photo: Carolyn McBride, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and the Princeton Neuroscience Institute
