Scientists are about to teach mosquitoes without human blood

Mosquitoes are annoying and can even be deadly. They spread disease, through blood sucking. Now, an international team of scientists has looked at genes that cause this behavior and will try to make mosquitoes stop sucking human blood. This will lead to a significant reduction in mosquito-borne infectious diseases.

Scientists have identified 902 genes involved in blood-sucking mosquitoes, of which 478 are related to not sucking blood from Wyeomyia smithii. If they can isolate these non-sucking genes and use them, they can make mosquitoes more alien to people. If mosquitoes do not burn people, diseases spread from mosquitoes will be less spread, can save hundreds of thousands of lives every year.

Most importantly, scientists have developed a method to identify and identify genes related to blood-sucking and non-blood-sucking, which can be used on similar systems to limit mosquitoes. Other spread of deadly diseases.

Home mosquitoes in general, Asian tiger mosquitoes and African malaria mosquitoes will be the next target of the study. Scientists will try to discover the pattern of genes that can be combined correctly with non-blood-feeding behavior (abstinence from blood). After that, these genes can be isolated and altered, while genes that suck blood can be suppressed.

Professor Michael Pfrender, one of the authors of the study, said: "This study shows the power of combining breeding experiments and genetic data to learn more about biological activity. of pathogenic genes ".

The current solution is to only kill mosquito populations. The problem is that these methods often harm the environment and other species. Moreover, no one can predict what will happen if the mosquito disappears from the ecosystem's food chain. So, keep mosquitoes and find ways to prevent them from spreading diseases in other optimal ways.

See more:

1. What happens if obnoxious mosquitoes disappear completely on Earth?
2. A simple trap can kill quickly, compact 4,000 mosquitoes every night anyone can do it at home
3. 10 interesting things about mosquitoes, the smallest but most dangerous insects on the planet