Abstract
The African malaria mosquito Anopheles gambiae sensu stricto continues to play an important role in malaria transmission, which is aggravated by its high degree of anthropophily, making it among the foremost vectors of this disease. In the current study we set out to unravel the strong association between this mosquito species and human beings, as it is determined by odorant cues derived from the human skin. Microbial communities on the skin play key roles in the production of human body odour. We demonstrate that the composition of the skin microbiota affects the degree of attractiveness of human beings to this mosquito species. Bacterial plate counts and 16S rRNA sequencing revealed that individuals that are highly attractive to An. gambiae s.s. have a significantly higher abundance, but lower diversity of bacteria on their skin than individuals that are poorly attractive. Bacterial genera that are correlated with the relative degree of attractiveness to mosquitoes were identified. The discovery of the connection between skin microbial populations and attractiveness to mosquitoes may lead to the development of new mosquito attractants and personalized methods for protection against vectors of malaria and other infectious diseases.
Highlights
Host location by female mosquitoes is mediated by host-derived physical and chemical cues
In this study we demonstrated that the composition and abundance of the human skin microbiota influences the relative degree of attractiveness of a human to the malaria mosquito An. gambiae
The correlation between Pseudomonas spp. and poorly attractive (PA) individuals is in accordance with in vitro experiments showing that the blend of compounds produced by P. aeruginosa is attractive to An. gambiae [20]
Summary
Host location by female mosquitoes is mediated by host-derived physical and chemical cues. Moisture and visual cues, and play a role during orientation and landing [1,2,3]. Chemical cues are considered most important for orientation and landing, especially for nocturnal mosquitoes [4,5] and humans can be ranked for attractiveness to mosquitoes by testing the emanations released from their skin [6,7,8,9]. Volatiles released from human skin provide essential cues that guide this mosquito species to its host [4,5]. Skin bacteria play an important role in the production of human body odour and without bacteria, human sweat is odourless to the human nose [10]. The interactions between skin microbes and the human host, are still poorly understood [15] and the effect of the skin microbial composition on disease vectors remains largely unknown [16]
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