Skin compounds associated with attractiveness to mosquitoes

(NIH) Better knowledge of why some people are more attractive to mosquitoes could lead to new ways to prevent mosquito bites. In turn, this could help prevent mosquito-borne illnesses, which sicken hundreds of millions of people worldwide each year, leading to hundreds of thousands of deaths. Mosquitoes use four types of molecules called co-receptors to help detect odors. The researchers performed a set of experiments where they eliminated these co-receptors in different groups of mosquitoes. For three of the co-receptors, removal of each decreased the general interest of the mosquitoes in human odors. However, the mosquitoes could still distinguish between the most and least attractive people.