The story of the mosquito who prefers humans (the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which carries dengue fever and Zika virus)

Mosquitoes that make us miserable in summer.

Mosquito story also appears in the children's education video Super JoJo

 

Among the mosquitoes is Aedes aegypti, known as the dreadful one.

It is known to cause yellow fever or dengue fever and, more recently, to the Zika virus.

Mosquitoe Aedes aegypti

 

 

 

Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are originally from Africa, but have spread all over the world by air or ship.

It can be seen that the darker the red color, the more Aegypti mosquitoes spread not only in Africa but also around the equator to the world.

The darker the red, the more the Aedes aegypti mosquito spreads, indicating that it has spread not only to Africa but also to the world.

 

 

The scary thing about this mosquito is that it prefers humans to other animals.

Therefore, even with other animals, Aedes aegypti will stick to humans and suck blood.

 

Recently, a paper has been published that elucidates how the habits of Aedes Aedes mosquitoes are formed.

  

Mosquito brains encode unique features of human odour to drive host seeking

Nature volume 605, pages 706–712 (2022)

 

Researchers make equipment and put human hands and breath on one side, animals were placed on the other side to see which side of the mosquitoes was more likely to gather.

 As a result, data shows that mosquitoes approach humans better than mice, guinea pigs and quails!

 

In order to confirm how this phenomenon occurs, by measuring the signal transmission of the cranial nerve sensor neurons. And they found that a unique signal is found only in humans.

 

An image was created by composing the brain structure of a mosquito that smells in three dimensions,

Researchers took 8 volunteers and traced the location of the mosquito's brain activation, and it was confirmed that a strong signal was obtained (green arrow head).

In other animals, however, there is little signal.

 

 

Therefore, they concluded that Aedes aegypti prefers a host that activates the green region. It's human!.

 

Through this study, researchers investigated how mosquitoes find hosts and show preferences.

 

 

It is known that the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which cannot produce offspring, has recently been developed using genetic engineering technology.

Mosquitoes are certainly pests from our point of view, but if we get rid of them completely, it will have a detrimental effect on the ecosystem.

However, if the technology confirmed in this study was applied to make mosquitoes prefer animals other than humans, wouldn't it have little effect on the ecosystem and no harm to humans?