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Scientists have known for decades that mosquitoes are attracted to the lactic acid contained in human sweat, but in the era prior to advanced genetics, the precise mechanism remained mysterious.
Now, a team of researchers at Florida International University has discovered the olfactory receptor that allows disease-carrying insects to capture our scent – and how to extinguish it.
They published their work on Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, known to spread deadly diseases such as Zika, dengue and yellow fever, in the journal Current Biology on Thursday.
The team, led by CRF biologist Matthew DeGennaro, identified the guilty receptor as the ion receptor 8a, or simply IR8a, through a process of elimination that began in 2013 when DeGennaro been able to create the world's first mutant mosquito, by removing a gene to determine its absence affected the insect.
DeGennaro's Ph.D. student, Joshua Raji began by conducting an exposure experiment with the help of his own arm and discovered that mutant mosquitoes attracted him far less than wild mosquitoes.
The result was confirmed by tests on 14 additional subjects.
Read also: Dengue kills more than 100 people in Indonesia
"People are looking for a lactic acid receptor since the 1960s," DeGennaro told AFP.
The results could provide a roadmap for a new generation of attractants that draw adult specimens into population control traps, as well as advanced repellents that make people invisible to mosquitoes – although this may be remote.
"It will take years, but we are really a step closer," said DeGennaro.
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