A new study suggests that some mosquitoes that transmit diseases like dengue and yellow fever evolved to prefer human body odor after originally biting animals. Researchers examined genes in mosquitoes in Kenya and found that human-loving mosquitoes are attracted to human scent. One odor receptor gene called Or4 was particularly linked to this attraction to humans. The study suggests these mosquitoes acquired a preference for human body odor that helped them specialize in biting humans.

1. Mosquitoes
Are drawn by human odour, says
study

2. Contd..
• Some of the female mosquitoes that spread dengue and yellow fever
transitioned from animal-biting insects into deadly vectors of human
disease by acquiring “love” for human body odour, a new study
suggests.
• “We provide the ideal lifestyle for mosquitoes. We always have water
around for them to breed in, we are hairless and we live in large
groups,” said Leslie B Vosshall from the Rockefeller University in the
US. “They’ve acquired a love for human body odour, and that’s a key
step in specializing on us,” she said.

3. Contd..
• To understand the evolutionary basis of this attraction, Vosshall and
her colleagues examined the genes that drove some mosquitoes to
prefer humans in Rabai, Kenya. Their findings suggest that human-loving
mosquitoes are attracted to our scent.
• Scientists had earlier observed two distinct populations living just
hundreds of meters apart. Black mosquitoes, a subspecies called
Aedes aegypti formosus, tended to lay its eggs outdoors and
preferred to bite forest animals.

4. Contd..
• Their light-brown cousins, Aedes aegypti aegypti, tended to breed
indoors in water jugs and mostly hunted humans.
• To zero in on the genes responsible for the human-loving mosquitoes’
preference, researchers crossbred the mosquitoes, creating
thousands of genetically diverse grandchildren. And then they sorted
those mosquitoes based on their odour preference and compared the
two groups.

5. Contd..
• “We knew that these mosquitoes had evolved a love for the way we
smell,” Vosshall said. The researchers looked specifically for genes
that had higher levels of expression in the human-loving insects’
antennae. These structures contain proteins called odorant receptors
that pick up different scents.
• They found 14 genes strongly linked to liking humans, but one odour
receptor gene — Or4 — stood out.

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