MOSQUITOES may home in on a particular component of sweat, genetic studies have revealed. The finding could lead to new ways of killing or evading the pests, and thus help combat malaria.
When the mosquito genome was sequenced, John Carlson of Yale University was intrigued by the similarity between certain odour-related genes in mosquitoes and those in the fruit fly. His team put the gene AgOr1 from the malaria-carrying Anopheles mosquito into fruit-fly neurons, to find out what odour molecule is detected by the receptor protein encoded by the gene.
A battery of food odours failed to elicit a response.…
