Journal article
Commonly used insect repellents hide human odors from Anopheles mosquitoes
Current biology, v 29(21), pp 3669-3680.e5
04 Nov 2019
PMID: 31630950
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
The mode of action for most mosquito repellents is unknown. This is primarily due to the difficulty in monitoring how the mosquito olfactory system responds to repellent odors. Here, we used the Q-system of binary expression to enable activity-dependent Ca
2+
imaging in olfactory neurons of the African malaria mosquito
Anopheles coluzzii
. This system allows neuronal responses to common insect repellents to be directly visualized in living mosquitoes from all olfactory organs including the antenna. The synthetic repellents DEET and IR3535 did not activate
Anopheles
Odorant Receptor Co-Receptor (Orco) expressing olfactory receptor neurons (ORNs) at any concentration, while picaridin weakly activated ORNs only at high concentrations. In contrast, natural repellents (
i.e.
lemongrass oil and eugenol) strongly activated small numbers of ORNs in the
Anopheles
mosquito antennae at low concentrations. We determined that DEET, IR3535, and picaridin decrease the response of Orco expressing ORNs when these repellents are physically mixed with activating human-derived odorants. We present evidence that synthetic repellents may primarily exert their olfactory mode of action by decreasing the amount of volatile odorants reaching ORNs. These results suggest that synthetic repellents disruptively change the chemical profile of host scent signatures on the skin surface rendering humans invisible to
Anopheles
mosquitoes.
The olfactory mode of action for mosquito repellents is unclear. Afify et al genetically engineered
Anopheles
mosquitoes to reveal odor-induced activities in olfactory neurons. Natural repellents activated olfactory neurons, while synthetic repellents did not. Synthetic repellents instead likely reduce attraction to humans by decreasing the amount of odorants reaching the mosquito.
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Details
- Title
- Commonly used insect repellents hide human odors from Anopheles mosquitoes
- Creators
- Ali Afify - Johns Hopkins MedicineJoshua F. Betz - Johns Hopkins University School of MedicineOlena Riabinina - Johns Hopkins MedicineChloé Lahondère - Virginia TechChristopher J. Potter - Johns Hopkins Medicine
- Publication Details
- Current biology, v 29(21), pp 3669-3680.e5
- Publisher
- Elsevier
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Biology
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:000494940000028
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-85074062907
- Other Identifier
- 991021229996404721
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- Collaboration types
- Domestic collaboration
- International collaboration
- Web of Science research areas
- Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
- Biology
- Cell Biology