• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Deaf Mosquitoes Don’t Get It On – And We Could Harness That To Fight Disease

November 5, 2024 by Deborah Bloomfield

Deaf male mosquitos don’t mate – that’s the finding of new research that tinkered with the little flies’ genes to understand the importance of hearing in their sex lives.

The study focused on Aedes aegypti – these mosquitoes spread viruses infecting approximately 400 million people annually, including dengue, yellow fever, and Zika – and has identified a quirk of creepy crawly copulation that could be exploited to help beat mosquito-borne diseases.

Advertisement

For male mozzies, being able to hear their mate is fundamental during sexy times. The insects mate in mid-air, and the sound of a female’s wingbeats is a crucial part of the seduction process. Females flap their wings at around 500 hertz to entice males, which, upon hearing this, take off in pursuit, buzzing at about 800 hertz themselves.

This has long been established, but, until now, we had no idea whether loss of hearing in male mosquitoes would just disrupt mating or eradicate it entirely. To find out, the team behind the research created deaf mosquitoes by eliminating a protein called trpVa that appears to be essential for hearing. To do so they used the CRISPR-Cas9 system to knock out the gene responsible.

Taking a closer look at the mutant mosquitoes’ brains revealed that neurons that normally detect sounds were not responsive to female wingbeats. And sure enough, the hard-of-hearing bugs made no attempts to mate with females – even after days in the same cage.

“If they can’t hear the female wingbeat, they’re not interested,” study author Professor Craig Montell said in a statement.

Advertisement

In comparison, when the researchers didn’t meddle with their hearing, A. aegypti were much more promiscuous, getting it on multiple times in just a few minutes.

“I think the reason why our major finding is so shocking is because, in most organisms, mating behavior is dependent on a combination of several sensory cues,” said co-lead author Emma Duge, one of Montell’s doctoral students. “The fact that taking away a single sense can completely abolish mating is fascinating.”

It was a different story for female mosquitoes, however. Deaf individuals were still up for it, the team found. “The impact on the female is minimal, but the impact on the male is absolute,” according to Montell.

The team believe these findings will be applicable to other species of mosquito too – knowledge that we could harness to aid the prevention of multiple mosquito-borne diseases.

Advertisement

Female mozzies are the ones that spread disease, but “without the ability of males to hear – and acoustically chase – female mosquitoes might become extinct,” Dr Joerg Albert, from the University of Oldenburg in Germany and an expert on mosquito mating, told the BBC.

Therefore, targeting trpVa could complement existing attempts to control populations of the planet’s deadliest animal, such as releasing sterile males.

The study is published in the journal PNAS.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Hong Kong security chief steps up pressure on city’s main press group
  2. One Identity has acquired OneLogin, a rival to Okta and Ping in sign-on and identity access management
  3. “Starquakes” On Neutron Stars Could Be Source Of Mysterious Fast Radio Bursts
  4. The Smallest Mammal In The World Lived 53 Million Years Ago

Source Link: Deaf Mosquitoes Don’t Get It On – And We Could Harness That To Fight Disease

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • Project Hail Mary Trailer First Look: What Would Happen If The Sun Got Darker?
  • Newly Discovered Cell Structure Might Hold Key To Understanding Devastating Genetic Disorders
  • What Is Kakeya’s Needle Problem, And Why Do We Want To Solve It?
  • “I Wasn’t Prepared For The Sheer Number Of Them”: Cave Of Mummified Never-Before-Seen Eyeless Invertebrates Amazes Scientists
  • Asteroid Day At 10: How The World Is More Prepared Than Ever To Face Celestial Threats
  • What Happened When A New Zealand Man Fell Butt-First Onto A Powerful Air Hose
  • Ancient DNA Confirms Women’s Unexpected Status In One Of The Oldest Known Neolithic Settlements
  • Earth’s Weather Satellites Catch Cloud Changes… On Venus
  • Scientists Find Common Factors In People Who Have “Out-Of-Body” Experiences
  • Shocking Photos Reveal Extent Of Overfishing’s Impact On “Shrinking” Cod
  • Direct Fusion Drive Could Take Us To Sedna During Its Closest Approach In 11,000 Years
  • Earth’s Energy Imbalance Is More Than Double What It Should Be – And We Don’t Know Why
  • We May Have Misjudged A Fundamental Fact About The Cambrian Explosion
  • The Shoebill Is A Bird So Bizarre That Some People Don’t Even Believe It’s Real
  • Colossal’s “Dire Wolves” Are Now 6 Months Old – And They’ve Doubled In Size
  • How To Fake A Fossil: Find Out More In Issue 36 Of CURIOUS – Out Now
  • Is It True Earth Used To Take 420 Days To Orbit The Sun?
  • One Of The Ocean’s “Most Valuable Habitats” Grows The Only Flowers Known To Bloom In Seawater
  • World’s Largest Digital Camera Snaps 2,104 New Asteroids In 10 Hours, Mice With 2 Dads Father Their Own Offspring, And Much More This Week
  • Simplest Explanation For “Anomalous” Signals Coming From Underneath Antarctica Ruled Out
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version