Faculty of Infectious and Tropical Diseases, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, WC1E 7HT London, United Kingdom;
Laboratory of Entomology, Wageningen University & Research, 6708 PB Wageningen, The Netherlands.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2018 May 1;115(18):E4209-E4218. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1721610115. Epub 2018 Apr 16.
Malaria parasites () can change the attractiveness of their vertebrate hosts to vectors, leading to a greater number of vector-host contacts and increased transmission. Indeed, naturally -infected children have been shown to attract more mosquitoes than parasite-free children. Here, we demonstrate -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, -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 -infected humans lead to increased mosquito biting in a natural setting, this would likely affect the transmission of malaria.
疟原虫()可以改变脊椎动物宿主对媒介的吸引力，导致更多的媒介与宿主接触，并增加传播。事实上，已经有研究表明，自然感染疟原虫的儿童比未感染疟原虫的儿童更能吸引蚊子。在这里，我们证明了疟原虫感染会增加肯尼亚儿童皮肤气味的吸引力，并揭示了感染个体与未感染个体在特定气味成分产生方面的定量差异。我们发现，感染个体产生的醛类化合物庚醛、辛醛和壬醛的量更大，并且可以被蚊子触角检测到。在行为实验中，我们证明了这些以及其他由疟原虫感染引起的醛类化合物可以增强模仿“健康”人体气味的合成气味混合物的吸引力。庚醛本身就能增加“未感染”的天然人体气味的吸引力。如果这些醛类化合物在自然环境中由疟原虫感染的人类大量产生，导致蚊子叮咬增加，这可能会影响疟疾的传播。
