Alicia Showering
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK
Title: Exploring role of the skin microbiome and host genetics in human attractiveness to mosquitoes
Biography
Biography: Alicia Showering
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.
Results: Here, we examined 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 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. Propanoic pathways are enriched in the poorly-attractive participants compared to those found to be highly-attractive. We found attractiveness to mosquitoes and some genera of bacteria to be heritable that suggests a genetic component to mosquito attractiveness.
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.