{"id":90506,"date":"2019-05-09T12:43:26","date_gmt":"2019-05-09T19:43:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/05\/egg-yolk-precursor-protein-regulates-mosquitoes-attraction-to-humans"},"modified":"2019-05-09T12:43:26","modified_gmt":"2019-05-09T19:43:26","slug":"egg-yolk-precursor-protein-regulates-mosquitoes-attraction-to-humans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/05\/egg-yolk-precursor-protein-regulates-mosquitoes-attraction-to-humans","title":{"rendered":"Egg yolk precursor protein regulates mosquitoes\u2019 attraction to humans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/egg-yolk-precursor-protein-regulates-mosquitoes-attraction-to-humans3.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Feeding mosquitoes sugar makes them less attracted to humans, a response that is regulated by the protein vitellogenin, according to a study publishing May 9 in the open-access journal <i>PLOS Biology<\/i> by Jessica Dittmer, Paolo Gabrieli and colleagues at the Universit\u00e0 degli Studi di Pavia in Italy.<\/p>\n<p>Female mosquitoes must feed on blood to provide energy and nutrients for their developing eggs, but they can also supplement their diet with sugars by drinking plant nectar or sap. The team fed young female tiger mosquitos (<i>Aedes albopictus<\/i>) sugar solutions, and found it reduced their attraction to <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/human+skin\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">human skin<\/a>. Female energy levels constantly increase after feeding sugars, and they are not related to the insects\u2019 motivation to find a host.<\/p>\n<p>Transcriptome sequencing revealed a wave of gene expression changes associated with this reduction in host-seeking behaviour, which affected at least 23 genes including the vitellogenin gene Vg-2\u2014known to play a role in ovary development. RNA interference experiments to knockdown the Vg-2 gene expression restored the mosquitos\u2019 attraction to humans, confirming the gene\u2019s key role in regulating feeding behaviour.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2019-05-egg-yolk-precursor-protein-mosquitoes.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><\/p>\n<div style=\"clear:both;\">Read more<\/div>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Feeding mosquitoes sugar makes them less attracted to humans, a response that is regulated by the protein vitellogenin, according to a study publishing May 9 in the open-access journal PLOS Biology by Jessica Dittmer, Paolo Gabrieli and colleagues at the Universit\u00e0 degli Studi di Pavia in Italy. Female mosquitoes must feed on blood to provide [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":513,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/513"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90506\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}