Malaria Infected Mosquitoes Express Enhanced Attraction to Human Odor

There is much evidence that some pathogens manipulate the behaviour of their mosquito hosts to enhance pathogen transmission. However, it is unknown whether this phenomenon exists in the interaction of Anopheles gambiae sensu stricto with the malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum - one of the most...

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Main Authors:	Smallegange, Renate C., van Gemert, Geert-Jan, van de Vegte-Bolmer, Marga, Gezan, Salvador, Takken, Willem, Sauerwein, Robert W., Logan, James G.
Format:	Online
Language:	English
Published:	Public Library of Science 2013
Online Access:	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3655188/

id	pubmed-3655188
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	pubmed-36551882013-05-20 Malaria Infected Mosquitoes Express Enhanced Attraction to Human Odor Smallegange, Renate C. van Gemert, Geert-Jan van de Vegte-Bolmer, Marga Gezan, Salvador Takken, Willem Sauerwein, Robert W. Logan, James G. Research Article There is much evidence that some pathogens manipulate the behaviour of their mosquito hosts to enhance pathogen transmission. However, it is unknown whether this phenomenon exists in the interaction of Anopheles gambiae sensu stricto with the malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum - one of the most important interactions in the context of humanity, with malaria causing over 200 million human cases and over 770 thousand deaths each year. Here we demonstrate, for the first time, that infection with P. falciparum causes alterations in behavioural responses to host-derived olfactory stimuli in host-seeking female An. gambiae s.s. mosquitoes. In behavioural experiments we showed that P. falciparum-infected An. gambiae mosquitoes were significantly more attracted to human odors than uninfected mosquitoes. Both P. falciparum-infected and uninfected mosquitoes landed significantly more on a substrate emanating human skin odor compared to a clean substrate. However, significantly more infected mosquitoes landed and probed on a substrate emanating human skin odor than uninfected mosquitoes. This is the first demonstration of a change of An. gambiae behaviour in response to olfactory stimuli caused by infection with P. falciparum. The results of our study provide vital information that could be used to provide better predictions of how malaria is transmitted from human being to human being by An. gambiae s.s. females. Additionally, it highlights the urgent need to investigate this interaction further to determine the olfactory mechanisms that underlie the differential behavioural responses. In doing so, new attractive compounds could be identified which could be used to develop improved mosquito traps for surveillance or trapping programmes that may even specifically target P. falciparum-infected An. gambiae s.s. females. Public Library of Science 2013-05-15 /pmc/articles/PMC3655188/ /pubmed/23691073 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0063602 Text en © 2013 Smallegange et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
repository_type	Open Access Journal
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	US National Center for Biotechnology Information
building	NCBI PubMed
collection	Online Access
language	English
format	Online
author	Smallegange, Renate C. van Gemert, Geert-Jan van de Vegte-Bolmer, Marga Gezan, Salvador Takken, Willem Sauerwein, Robert W. Logan, James G.
spellingShingle	Smallegange, Renate C. van Gemert, Geert-Jan van de Vegte-Bolmer, Marga Gezan, Salvador Takken, Willem Sauerwein, Robert W. Logan, James G. Malaria Infected Mosquitoes Express Enhanced Attraction to Human Odor
author_facet	Smallegange, Renate C. van Gemert, Geert-Jan van de Vegte-Bolmer, Marga Gezan, Salvador Takken, Willem Sauerwein, Robert W. Logan, James G.
author_sort	Smallegange, Renate C.
title	Malaria Infected Mosquitoes Express Enhanced Attraction to Human Odor
title_short	Malaria Infected Mosquitoes Express Enhanced Attraction to Human Odor
title_full	Malaria Infected Mosquitoes Express Enhanced Attraction to Human Odor
title_fullStr	Malaria Infected Mosquitoes Express Enhanced Attraction to Human Odor
title_full_unstemmed	Malaria Infected Mosquitoes Express Enhanced Attraction to Human Odor
title_sort	malaria infected mosquitoes express enhanced attraction to human odor
description	There is much evidence that some pathogens manipulate the behaviour of their mosquito hosts to enhance pathogen transmission. However, it is unknown whether this phenomenon exists in the interaction of Anopheles gambiae sensu stricto with the malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum - one of the most important interactions in the context of humanity, with malaria causing over 200 million human cases and over 770 thousand deaths each year. Here we demonstrate, for the first time, that infection with P. falciparum causes alterations in behavioural responses to host-derived olfactory stimuli in host-seeking female An. gambiae s.s. mosquitoes. In behavioural experiments we showed that P. falciparum-infected An. gambiae mosquitoes were significantly more attracted to human odors than uninfected mosquitoes. Both P. falciparum-infected and uninfected mosquitoes landed significantly more on a substrate emanating human skin odor compared to a clean substrate. However, significantly more infected mosquitoes landed and probed on a substrate emanating human skin odor than uninfected mosquitoes. This is the first demonstration of a change of An. gambiae behaviour in response to olfactory stimuli caused by infection with P. falciparum. The results of our study provide vital information that could be used to provide better predictions of how malaria is transmitted from human being to human being by An. gambiae s.s. females. Additionally, it highlights the urgent need to investigate this interaction further to determine the olfactory mechanisms that underlie the differential behavioural responses. In doing so, new attractive compounds could be identified which could be used to develop improved mosquito traps for surveillance or trapping programmes that may even specifically target P. falciparum-infected An. gambiae s.s. females.
publisher	Public Library of Science
publishDate	2013
url	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3655188/
_version_	1611978152081358848

Malaria Infected Mosquitoes Express Enhanced Attraction to Human Odor

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