# Identifying mosquito olfactory receptors for human odor by measuring mRNA expression levels

> **NIH NIH R21** · FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY · 2020 · $178,450

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
By feeding on human blood, mosquitoes annually infect hundreds of millions of people with disease.
Understanding how they identify and home in on their hosts represents an unparalleled opportunity to decipher
the behavioral strategies of one of the most successful predators in evolutionary history, and potentially improve
public health and quality of life worldwide. Aedes aegypti offers a unique, genetically accessible system to study
how human odor is sensed by mosquitoes. Mutants that ablate olfactory receptor function of the three olfactory
receptor families in mosquitoes are available. These mutants have demonstrated that olfaction is critical for
mosquitoes to sense their human hosts and avoid repellents. We have developed a technique that allows us
figure out which genes “smell” an odor by assessing how the olfactory receptor gene expression is altered after
a mosquito is exposed to that odor. By exposing mosquitoes to human odor and single human odor components,
we will find the genes that enable mosquitoes to find their human hosts. This proposal uses a new technique
developed in mammals and Drosophila, Deorphanization of Receptors based on Expression Alteration of mRNA
levels (DREAM). Our unpublished data demonstrates the efficacy of this technique in mosquitoes. This will allow
us to comprehensively determine which Aedes aegypti mosquito olfactory receptors are activated by human
odor in vivo by characterizing the reduction of mRNA levels of these receptors using RNA-seq and quantitative
RT-PCR. The genes identified with our approach are likely to be odor-gated ion channels such as Odorant
Receptors (ORs) or Ionotropic Receptors (IRs). The identified ORs and IRs can then be used to screen for
chemicals that can activate them with higher affinity than their natural odor-ligands. Alternatively, chemicals that
block their activation in the presence of their odor-ligands can become lead compounds to develop new
repellents. As RNA-seq does not use gene-specific primers to generate sequence data, this approach may also
reveal genes not previously thought to be involved in the sensation of human odor by mosquitoes. In addition,
the approaches developed by this proposal can be applied to understanding host detection mechanisms in other
vectors of human disease such as Glossina morsitans, Ixodes scapularis, and other mosquito species such
Aedes albopictus, Anopheles gambiae and Culex quinquefasciatus. The conservation of DREAM across both
vertebrates and invertebrates makes it potentially a powerful tool for understanding chemosensation in many
organisms. Thus, our approach will provide insight into vector biology in three ways: the molecular mechanism
of mosquito human host detection, technical information that can be applied to the understanding of
chemosensation in other vectors, and a list of molecular targets for mosquito attractant and repellent design.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9829077
- **Project number:** 5R21AI142140-02
- **Recipient organization:** FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Matthew DeGennaro
- **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $178,450
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2018-12-01 → 2022-11-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9829077

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9829077, Identifying mosquito olfactory receptors for human odor by measuring mRNA expression levels (5R21AI142140-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9829077. Licensed CC0.

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