Raji Joshua I, Gonzalez Sheyla, DeGennaro Matthew
Department of Biological Sciences & Biomolecular Sciences Institute, Florida International University, Miami, FL, USA.
Commun Integr Biol. 2019 Oct 25;12(1):181-186. doi: 10.1080/19420889.2019.1681063. eCollection 2019.
The detection of water sources is crucial for insects such as mosquitoes to avoid desiccation and survive. In addition, mosquitoes use humidity cues to successfully navigate the environment to find a suitable oviposition site. Previous studies have implicated some members of the ionotropic receptor family in humidity sensing by . Here, we investigate if IR8a co-receptor mediates water detection in mosquitoes. Using a simple behavioral assay, we examined the attraction of mutant mosquitoes to standing water. mutant mosquitoes were able to discriminate between traps containing water and those without as well as wild-type and heterozygous control females. Surprisingly, the female mutants were more robustly drawn to standing water than control mosquitoes. Further investigation revealed that the increased behavioral attraction to water is likely not mediated by a metabolic need or an activity defect.
对蚊子等昆虫来说，水源检测对于避免脱水和生存至关重要。此外，蚊子利用湿度线索在环境中成功导航以找到合适的产卵地点。先前的研究表明离子型受体家族的一些成员参与了湿度感知。在这里，我们研究离子型受体8a（IR8a）共受体是否介导蚊子对水的检测。通过一个简单的行为试验，我们检测了突变蚊子对静水的吸引力。突变蚊子能够像野生型和杂合子对照雌性蚊子一样区分有水的陷阱和无水的陷阱。令人惊讶的是，雌性突变体比对照蚊子更强烈地被静水吸引。进一步的研究表明，对水的行为吸引力增加可能不是由代谢需求或活动缺陷介导的。
