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Repelling Mosquitoes with Skin Bacteria: Microbial Minutes

Sept. 13, 2024

Mosquitoes are attracted to microbe-derived odors on skin. Scientists engineered human skin bacteria so they can't produce a key odor attractant, providing a basis for microbiome-based repellents.

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Are you a mosquito magnet? Or do they tend to leave you alone? 

In either case, you can blame your smell. Or rather, you can blame your skin bacteria. These microbes produce odorous compounds that mosquitoes use to find hosts to feed on. As a result, the make-up of someone’s skin microbiota—and the odors it generates—plays a key role in how attractive they are to mosquitoes. This raises the question: can we change our skin microbiota to repel, rather than attract, mosquitoes? Scientists are digging into this question, working toward developing strategies that repel mosquitoes with microbes in mind. Key take-aways and resources used in this Microbial Minutes are listed below.

Key Take-Aways

• Mosquitoes use multiple physical and chemical cues to find human hosts, including odors generated from the metabolic activity of skin bacteria. 
• Scientists generated strains of 2 prominent skin bacterial species (Staphylococcus epidermidis and Corneybacteria amycolatum) that lack the ability to produce L-(+)-lactic acid, a key mosquito attractant. 
• Compared to wild-type bacteria, mosquitoes were less attracted to the engineered strains in vitro, as well as when the bacteria were applied to the skin of mice. The reduced attraction in vivo lasted for 7-11 days—a notable feature given chemical repellents, like DEET, only last a few hours. 
• The results provide a basis for harnessing skin microbes to facilitate development of stable, long-lasting repellents.

Resources

Featured Study

• Liu, F., et al. Engineered skin microbiome reduces mosquito attraction to mice. . 

Additional Sources

• Coutinho-Abreu, I.V., et al. Human attractive cues and mosquito host-seeking behavior. .
• Coutinho-Abreu, I.V., et al. Identification of human skin microbiome odorants that manipulate mosquito landing behavior. .
• Khanna, K. Microbial Origins of Body Odor. American Society for °®¶¹´«Ã½, Dec. 30, 2021.
• Langlois, J. Dengue fever is — unfortunately — having a banner year. .
• Showering A., et al. Skin microbiome alters attractiveness to Anopheles mosquitoes.
• Zhang, H., et al. A volatile from the skin microbiota of flavivirus-infected hosts promotes mosquito attractiveness. .