What's that smell? (It's you!)
When you think of smell you think of lots of different things: dogs, sharks, Nelson from The Simpsons. One critter you don't think of is the mosquito. Well put that idea aside because as it turns out the mosquito can smell, specifically it can smell YOU! Researchers have found that the Anapheles mosquito, the main vector for malaria, appears to have evolved a specialization for sniffing out humans. Over the years Anapheles gambiae has specialized in finding and feeding on humans; kinda like Jaws but more annoying and itchier.
The infected female anapheles transmits malaria when feeding on a healthy individual. The parasites enter the bloodstream and quickly infect the host blood cells causing the disease we know as malaria. Malaria is a worldwide problem affecting 219 million people in 2010 as estimated by the World Health Organization. Although the primary region affected by malaria is sub-Saharan Africa, the disease is far reaching to even the United States.
In the paper (found here) scientists sequenced and analyzed the genome of Anapheles gambiae as well as Anapheles quadriannulatus, a related species which does not appear to preferentially feed on humans. The researchers found that there was a combined effect of mutations in some (what I'm going to call) "smell receptors" in the mosquito's antennae (it smells with its antennae? gross) as well as an abundance of other "smell receptors" that help it specifically smell humans. (This is a huge simplification, for more info read the paper!)
Studies like this one are rapidly changing our understanding of disease and disease transmission. Driven by the power of next generation sequencing, our ability to undertake these projects is increasing every day; a project like this would have been impossible not so long ago! However, with great sequencing power comes great necessity for sample processing. And we all know what spiders do to flies
Read the original paper: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2164/14/749/abstract
More about Aurora Biomed: www.aurorabiomed.com
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