Am I worthy to carry diseases? I'm not sure if I WANT to carry diseases!
Turns out that the mircobiota that resides on human skin can change how tasty you look to an African malaria mosquito (Anophenles gambiae). These mosquitoes use chemical cues to find suitable hosts and a study has found that people with higher microbial diversity are less attractive! It is thought that some of these bacteria mask any chemical cues that may be attractive to the A. gambiae.
Figure 1: Anophenles gambiae (Anonymous, 30/3/2014)
Picture references:
Figure 1: http://www3.nd.edu/~nbesansk/Publications.html by Anonymous, retrieved on the 30/03/2014
References:
Vanessa O. Ezenwa, Nicole M. Gerardo, David W. Inouye, Mónica Medina & Joao B. Xavier 2012, "Animal Behavior and the Microbiome", Science, vol. 338, no. 6104, pp. 198.
Is it only Anophenles gambiae which use this chemical cue? Because if our Mosquitoes use it to, then I'm going to start stocking up on microbiota!
ReplyDeleteThis is a very interesting topic. It would be great if you could explain in more detail.
ReplyDeleteThis is really interesting. Some people claim they attract mosquitoes more than others (I luckily don't seem to have this problem). However, I was wondering how sensitive these mosquitoes are to changing microbiota. Due to the fact the human microbiome is always slightly fluctuating because of diet, do these fluctuations effect the mosquito's preference? Also, what bacteria mask these chemical cues and where are these bacteria found in the human body?
ReplyDeleteIs there any way of changing our own microbiota? New type of insect repellant? haha
ReplyDelete