1. Mosquito heat seeking is driven by an ancestral cooling receptor
- Author
-
Flaminia Catteruccia, Willem J. Laursen, Andrea L. Smidler, Paul A. Garrity, Elaine Chang, Abigail M. Daniels, Chloe Greppi, Gonzalo Budelli, and Lena van Giesen
- Subjects
Heat Avoidance ,Hot Temperature ,Anopheles gambiae ,Zoology ,Cellular level ,Receptors, Ionotropic Glutamate ,Article ,Body Temperature ,Evolution, Molecular ,03 medical and health sciences ,Mice ,0302 clinical medicine ,parasitic diseases ,Anopheles ,Animals ,Host-Seeking Behavior ,Malaria vector ,Receptor ,Drosophila ,030304 developmental biology ,0303 health sciences ,Multidisciplinary ,biology ,fungi ,Thermoreceptors ,biology.organism_classification ,Circadian Rhythm ,3. Good health ,Cold Temperature ,Culicidae ,Blood ,Mutation ,Thermoreceptor ,Female ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery - Abstract
Heat seeking is cool Mosquitoes seek hosts using several cues, one of which is body heat. Greppi et al. hypothesized that cooling-activated receptors could be used for locating mammalian hosts if they were rewired downstream for repulsion responses (see the Perspective by Lazzari). A gene family conserved in insects and known to be responsible for sensing changes in temperature in fruit flies was the starting point. Genome-wide analyses and labeled CRISPR-Cas9 mutants allowed visualization of the receptor in neurons of Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes' antennae and assessment of adult female mosquitoes with a disrupted copy of the receptor. This ancestral insect temperature regulatory system has been repurposed for host-finding by malaria mosquitoes. Science , this issue p. 681 ; see also p. 628
- Published
- 2019