期刊名称：Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN：0027-8424
电子版ISSN：1091-6490
出版年度：2018
卷号：115
期号：18
页码：E4209-E4218
DOI：10.1073/pnas.1721610115
语种：English
出版社：The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要：Malaria parasites ( Plasmodium ) can change the attractiveness of their vertebrate hosts to Anopheles vectors, leading to a greater number of vector–host contacts and increased transmission. Indeed, naturally Plasmodium -infected children have been shown to attract more mosquitoes than parasite-free children. Here, we demonstrate Plasmodium -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, Plasmodium -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 Plasmodium -infected humans lead to increased mosquito biting in a natural setting, this would likely affect the transmission of malaria.
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