How Mosquitoes Sniff Out Human Sweat To Find Us
Female mosquitoes searching for a meal of blood detect people partly by using a special olfactory receptor to home in on our sweat. The finding could lead to new approaches for better repellents.
Mosquitoes searching for a meal of blood use a variety of clues to track down humans, including our body heat and the carbon dioxide in our breath. Now, research shows that a certain olfactory receptor in their antennae also serves as a detector of humans, responding to smelly chemicals in our sweat.
Targeting this receptor might offer a new way to foil blood-seeking mosquitoes and prevent the transmission of diseases including malaria, Zika virus and dengue, according to the study published Thursday in the journal Current Biology.
"We found a receptor for human, a neurogeneticist at Florida International University in Miami.
