Human attractive cues and mosquito host-seeking behavior

Female mosquitoes use chemical and physical cues, including vision, smell, heat, and humidity, to orient toward hosts. Body odors are produced by skin res-ident bacteria that convert metabolites secreted in sweat into odorants that con-fer the characteristic body scent. Mosquitoes detect these compounds using olfactory receptors in their antennal olfactory receptor neurons. Such informa-tion is further integrated with the senses of temperature and humidity, as well as vision, processed in the brain into a behavioral output, leading to host finding. Knowledge of human scent components unveils a variety of odorants that are attractive to mosquitoes, but also odor-triggering repellency. Finding ways to divert human-seeking behavior by female mosquitoes using odorants can possibly mitigate mosquito-borne pathogen transmission.

Automated summary

Female mosquitoes use chemical and physical cues like vision, smell, heat, and humidity to locate hosts. They detect body odors produced by skin bacteria through olfactory receptors. By integrating this information with temperature, humidity, and vision senses, mosquitoes are able to find hosts.