Study finds host-derived substance stops mosquitoes from sucking blood

A Japanese research team has discovered that mosquitoes carrying yellow fever stop feeding on their victims when they detect a substance produced by the clotting of their host’s blood, telling them there is a ‘safe period’ to strike and escape undetected.

The latest discovery “offers potential for developing innovative approaches to alleviate mosquito bites,” said a report by the team of researchers from the national scientific research institute Riken and the Jikei University School of Medicine.

A photo taken in Kobe on June 18, 2024, shows Chisako Sakuma, a senior scientist at the national science research institute Riken, talking about mosquito blood-feeding experiments. (Kyodo)

The substance, called fibrinopeptide A, is produced during blood clotting and is one of the factors that causes a mosquito to stop feeding on its host and escape, the team said in the report published in the open access online journal Cell Reports. .

“This discovery will lead to the development of methods to reduce mosquito-borne infections,” said Chisako Sakuma, a senior scientist at Riken.

In artificial feeding experiments, the team found that mosquitoes “actively feed on erythrocytes but not on plasma or serum alone,” suggesting that plasma and serum contain components that prevent mosquitoes to suck blood, the report said.

“It is likely that mosquitoes adopted a strategy of detecting the degree of blood clotting by using byproducts of the clotting process that are not necessary” for their hosts, the paper says.