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  • RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT

Why are some people mosquito magnets? Skin acids offer a hint

Experiments find a link between a person’s allure to the blood-sucking insects and specific molecules that waft from their skin.
The silhouettes of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes resting inside a translucent container.

Yellow-fever mosquitoes (Aedes aegypti, pictured) lacking some odour receptors can still home in on humans who emit high levels of carboxylic acids. Credit: Mario Tama/Getty

Mosquitoes are much more attracted to some humans than others, but that might not be down to ‘sweet blood’. New research shows that the skin of these mosquito magnets emits more compounds called carboxylic acids1.

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Nature 610, 609 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-03281-8

References

  1. De Obaldia, M. E. et al. Cell https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2022.09.034 (2022).

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