Abstract
The mosquito Anopheles gambiae is the major vector of malaria in sub-Saharan Africa. It locates its human hosts primarily through olfaction, but little is known about the molecular basis of this process. Here we functionally characterize the Anopheles gambiae odorant receptor (AgOr) repertoire. We identify receptors that respond strongly to components of human odour and that may act in the process of human recognition. Some of these receptors are narrowly tuned, and some salient odorants elicit strong responses from only one or a few receptors, suggesting a central role for specific transmission channels in human host-seeking behaviour. This analysis of the Anopheles gambiae receptors permits a comparison with the corresponding Drosophila melanogaster odorant receptor repertoire. We find that odorants are differentially encoded by the two species in ways consistent with their ecological needs. Our analysis of the Anopheles gambiae repertoire identifies receptors that may be useful targets for controlling the transmission of malaria.
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Acknowledgements
We thank W. van der Goes van Naters and C. Yao for help with electrophysiology, E. Hallem, S. Kreher, J. Salzman and T. Emonet for assistance with data analyses, and T.-W. Koh for comments on the manuscript. We thank P. Graham, Z. Berman, A. Rabin, M. Dillon and E. Kelley-Swift for technical assistance. We thank Y.-T. Qiu for assistance in generating Fig. 1b and Supplementary Fig. 1. This work was funded in part by grants from the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) through the Grand Challenges in Global Health Initiative to L.J.Z., and from the NIH to L.J.Z. and J.R.C. A.F.C. is supported by an NIH Medical Scientist Training Program grant (2T32GM07205).
Author Contributions Electrophysiology and computational analysis were performed by A.F.C. Molecular cloning was performed by A.F.C., G.W. and C.-Y.S. A.F.C. and J.R.C. wrote the manuscript. All authors contributed to the design and interpretation of the study.
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This file contains Supplementary Figures 1-8 with Legends, Supplementary Tables 1 & 3 Supplementary References and a Legend and References for Supplementary Table 2. (PDF 829 kb)
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Carey, A., Wang, G., Su, CY. et al. Odorant reception in the malaria mosquito Anopheles gambiae. Nature 464, 66–71 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature08834
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature08834
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