Membrane Proteins Mediating Reception and Transduction in Chemosensory Neurons in Mosquitoes

Abstract

Mosquitoes use chemical cues to modulate important behaviors such as feeding, mating, and egg laying. The primary chemosensory organs comprising the paired antennae, maxillary palps and labial palps are adorned with porous sensilla that house primary sensory neurons. Dendrites of these neurons provide an interface between the chemical environment and higher order neuronal processing. Diverse proteins located on outer membranes interact with chemicals, ions, and soluble proteins outside the cell and within the lumen of sensilla. Here, we review the repertoire of chemosensory receptors and other membrane proteins involved in transduction and discuss the outlook for their functional characterization. We also provide a brief overview of select ion channels, their role in mammalian taste, and potential involvement in mosquito taste. These chemosensory proteins represent targets for the disruption of harmful biting behavior and disease transmission by mosquito vectors.

Is Anopheles gambiae attraction to floral and human skin-based odours and their combination modulated by previous blood meal experience?

“…A mosquito's needs, however, frequently change between mating, nectar feeding, blood feeding and oviposition, and with that the odours to which it orients. Mosquitoes thus have to 'toggle' between sensory modes, which involves peripheral [44,45] and/or central modulatory factors [45]. In this study, we evaluated whether a combination of odours from spatio-temporally different origins would synergize attraction, or alternatively, constitute olfactory nonsense to a mosquito nose and potentially mask attractiveness.…”

Reflexion on Bio-Sourced Mosquito Repellents: Nature, Activity, and Preparation

“…Taking into account the complexity of the sensory system and the vast repertoire of sensory receptor proteins of a mosquito species (Sparks et al, 2018), this observation is not surprising. An optimal repellent activity could be obtained with an adapted mixture of components.…”

“…The molecular mode of action of IR3535, as well as most mosquito repellents, is getting more scientific interests but remains poorly documented (Sparks et al, 2018). Yet in 2011, Dickens and co-workers have identified two odorant receptors of Aedes aegypti, AaOR2 and AaOR8, involved in the recognition of attractive odorants (Bohbot et al, 2011).…”

“…Apart from the sensory receptors, another class of proteins, the odorant binding proteins (OBPs), play an important role in the sensory system of mosquitoes . Among various functions, they transport hydrophobic odorant through the aqueous sensillar lymph to receptors embedded on dendritic membranes of olfactory receptor neurons (Sparks et al, 2018;Venthur and Zhou, 2018). They constitute the first recognition step for an odorant/gustative compound before reaching receptors, where the second recognition step takes place.…”

Neuro-Olfactory Regulation and Salivary Actions: A Coordinated Event for Successful Blood-Feeding Behavior of Mosquitoes

“…In contrast to the rapid ionotropic pathway, the G protein-mediated metabotropic pathway is slower. However, it plays an important role when the odor cues are present in lower concentration, whereas high concentration directly involves the ionotropic pathway [8,27,57].…”