We’re Uncovering

Mosquito taste responses to human and floral cues guide biting and feeding

The taste system controls many insect behaviours, yet little is known about how tastants are encoded in mosquitoes or how they regulate critical behaviours. Here we examined how taste stimuli are encoded by Aedes albopictus mosquitoes—a highly invasive disease vector—and how these cues influence biting, feeding and egg laying. We found that neurons of the labellum, the major taste organ of the head, differentially encode a wide variety of human and other cues. We identified three functional classes of taste sensilla with an expansive coding capacity. In addition to excitatory responses, we identified prevalent inhibitory responses, which are predictive of biting behavior. Certain bitter compounds suppress physiological and behavioral responses to sugar, suggesting their use as potent stop signals against appetitive cues. Complex cues, including human sweat, nectar and egg-laying site water, elicit distinct response profiles from the neuronal repertoire. We identify key tastants on human skin and in sweat that synergistically promote biting behaviors. Transcriptomic profiling identifies taste receptors that could be targeted to disrupt behaviors. Our study sheds light on key features of the taste system that suggest new ways of manipulating chemosensory function and controlling mosquito vectors.

 We’re Exploring

The mosquito taste system and disease control

Mosquitoes are a widely diverse group of organisms, comprising ∼3,500 species that live in an enormous range of habitats. Some species are vectors of diseases that afflict hundreds of millions of people each year. Although understanding of mosquito olfaction has progressed dramatically in recent years, mosquito taste remains greatly understudied. Since taste is essential to feeding, egg-laying, and mating decisions in insects, improved understanding of taste in mosquitoes could provide new mechanistic insight into many aspects of their behavior. We provide a guide to current knowledge in the field, and we suggest a wealth of opportunities for research that are now enabled by recent scientific and technological advances. We also propose means by which taste might be exploited in new strategies for mosquito control, which may be urgently needed as the geographical ranges of vector species increase with climate change.