Skin microbiome alters attractiveness to Anopheles mosquitoes
Showering, Alicia; Martinez, Julien; Benavente, Ernest Diez; Gezan, Salvador A; Jones, Robert T; Oke, Catherine; Tytheridge, Scott; Pretorius, Elizabeth; Scott, Darren; Allen, Rachel L; D'Alessandro, Umberto; Lindsay, Steve W; Armour, John A L; Pickett, John; Logan, James G
(2022) BMC Microbiology, volume 22, issue 1
(Article)
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Some people produce specific body odours that make them more attractive than others to mosquitoes, and consequently are at higher risk of contracting vector-borne diseases. The skin microbiome can break down carbohydrates, fatty acids and peptides on the skin into volatiles that mosquitoes can differentiate. RESULTS: Here, we examined
... read more
how skin microbiome composition of women differs in relation to level of attractiveness to Anopheles coluzzii mosquitoes, to identify volatiles in body odour and metabolic pathways associated with individuals that tend to be poorly-attractive to mosquitoes. We used behavioural assays to measure attractiveness of participants to An. coluzzii mosquitoes, 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing of the bacteria sampled from the skin and gas chromatography of volatiles in body odour. We found differences in skin microbiome composition between the poorly- and highly-attractive groups, particularly eight Amplicon Sequence Variants (ASVs) belonging to the Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria and Firmicutes phyla. Staphylococcus 2 ASVs are four times as abundant in the highly-attractive compared to poorly-attractive group. Associations were found between these ASVs and volatiles known to be attractive to Anopheles mosquitoes. Propanoic pathways are enriched in the poorly-attractive participants compared to those found to be highly-attractive. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that variation in attractiveness of people to mosquitoes is related to the composition of the skin microbiota, knowledge that could improve odour-baited traps or other next generation vector control tools.
show less
Download/Full Text
Keywords: Anopheles coluzzii, Body odour, Diversity, Human attractiveness, Malaria, Mosquitoes, Repellents, Skin microbiome, Microbiology (medical), Microbiology
ISSN: 1471-2180
Publisher: BioMed Central
Note: Funding Information: This work was supported by MRC funding (MR/P021972/1) and AS is further supported by an MRC PhD studentship (MR/N013638/1). This project has received resources (16S sequencing) funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreements No 731060 (Infravec2). Funding bodies were not involved in the design of the study, data collection, analysis of data or writing of this manuscript. Publisher Copyright: © 2022, The Author(s).
(Peer reviewed)