4.8 Article

Plasmodium-associated changes in human odor attract mosquitoes

Publisher

NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1721610115

Keywords

malaria transmission; host attractiveness; parasite-vector-host interactions; aldehydes; disease biomarkers

Funding

  1. Medical Research Council
  2. Department for International Development and research grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
  3. Netherlands Organization for Health Research and Development (ZonMW TOP Grant) [91211038]
  4. Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (Vidi fellowship
  5. NWO Project) [016.158.306]
  6. Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council of the United Kingdom
  7. MRC [MR/R015600/1] Funding Source: UKRI

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Malaria parasites (Plasmodium) can change the attractiveness of their vertebrate hosts to Anopheles vectors, leading to a greater number of vector-host contacts and increased transmission. Indeed, naturally Plasmodium-infected children have been shown to attract more mosquitoes than parasite-free children. Here, we demonstrate Plasmodium-induced increases in the attractiveness of skin odor in Kenyan children and reveal quantitative differences in the production of specific odor components in infected vs. parasite-free individuals. We found the aldehydes heptanal, octanal, and nonanal to be produced in greater amounts by infected individuals and detected by mosquito antennae. In behavioral experiments, we demonstrated that these, and other, Plasmodium-induced aldehydes enhanced the attractiveness of a synthetic odor blend mimicking healthy human odor. Heptanal alone increased the attractiveness of parasite-free natural human odor. Should the increased production of these aldehydes by Plasmodium-infected humans lead to increased mosquito biting in a natural setting, this would likely affect the transmission of malaria.

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