Explained: Mosquitoes’ fail-safe sense of smell gets them past repellents, says study | Explained News,The Indian Express
In mosquitoes, according to the study, different receptors can respond to different odours in the same neuron. So, even if one receptor family is impaired, it does not hamper the mosquito’s ability to find and feast on human blood.
Friday, Aug 26, 2022
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HomeExplainedExplained: Mosquitoes’ fail-safe sense of smell gets them past repellents, says study
Explained: Mosquitoes’ fail-safe sense of smell gets them past repellents, says study
In mosquitoes, according to the study, different receptors can respond to different odours in the same neuron. So, even if one receptor family is impaired, it does not hamper the mosquito’s ability to find and feast on human blood.
By: Express News Service
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New Delhi | August 26, 2022 4:04:51 am
Mosquitoes are intensely attracted to body odour and carbon dioxide, and research in the past has found that eliminating entire receptors in mosquitoes that are used for decoding carbon dioxide does not stop them from finding their human prey.
If you have ever wondered how mosquitoes manage to sniff you out even when you are covered in bug repellent, scientists may have found the reason.
A recent study published in the journal Cell has revealed that mosquitoes have an evolved, unconventional sense of smell that provides them with a fail-safe method to find humans.
“The canonical view is that olfactory sensory neurons each express a single chemosensory receptor that defines its ligand selectivity,” the study notes, adding that in the Ae. Aegypti mosquitoes that were studied, it was found that they had “many neurons co-expressing multiple chemosensory receptor genes”.
Simply put, this specialised olfactory sense goes against the common olfactory understanding of ‘one neuron, one receptor’. In humans, for example, whenever a smell hits the nose, it triggers a sensory receptor after which corresponding neurons carry the message to the brain.
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