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Composition of Human Skin Microbiota Affects Attractiveness to Malaria Mosquitoes

Open access
Verhulst, Niels O., Qiu, Yu Tong, Beijleveld, Hans, Maliepaard, Chris, Knights, Dan, Schulz, Stefan, Berg-Lyons, Donna, Lauber, Christian L., Verduijn, Willem, Haasnoot, Geert W., Mumm, Roland, Bouwmeester, Harro J., Claas, Frans H. J., Dicke, Marcel, van Loon, Joop J. A., Takken, Willem, Knight, Rob, Smallegange, Renate C.·2011·PLoS ONE

Abstract

The African malaria mosquito Anopheles gambiae sensu stricto continues to play an important role in malaria transmission, which is aggravated by its high degree of anthropophily, making it among the foremost vectors of this disease. In the current study we set out to unravel the strong association between this mosquito species and human beings, as it is determined by odorant cues derived from the human skin. Microbial communities on the skin play key roles in the production of human body odour. We demonstrate that the composition of the skin microbiota affects the degree of attractiveness of human beings to this mosquito species. Bacterial plate counts and 16S rRNA sequencing revealed that individuals that are highly attractive to An. gambiae s.s. have a significantly higher abundance, but lower diversity of bacteria on their skin than individuals that are poorly attractive. Bacterial genera that are correlated with the relative degree of attractiveness to mosquitoes were identified. The discovery of the connection between skin microbial populations and attractiveness to mosquitoes may lead to the development of new mosquito attractants and personalized methods for protection against vectors of malaria and other infectious diseases.

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Metadata

Authors
Verhulst, N. O., Qiu, Y. T., Beijleveld, H., Maliepaard, C., Knights, D., Schulz, S., Berg-Lyons, D., Lauber, C. L., Verduijn, W., Haasnoot, G. W., Mumm, R., Bouwmeester, H. J., Claas, F. H. J., Dicke, M., van Loon, J. J. A., Takken, W., Knight, R., & Smallegange, R. C.
Venue
PLoS ONE
Published
2011-12-28
Volume
6
Issue
12
Pages
e28991
ISSN
1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2145421759
Cited by
268
References
5
FWCI
11.47
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
gold

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Composition of Human Skin Microbiota Affects Attractiveness to Malaria Mosquitoes. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1371/journal.pone.0028991
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Verhulst, N. O., Qiu, Y. T., Beijleveld, H., Maliepaard, C., Knights, D., Schulz, S., Berg-Lyons, D., Lauber, C. L., Verduijn, W., Haasnoot, G. W., Mumm, R., Bouwmeester, H. J., Claas, F. H. J., Dicke, M., van Loon, J. J. A., Takken, W., Knight, R., & Smallegange, R. C. (2011). Composition of Human Skin Microbiota Affects Attractiveness to Malaria Mosquitoes. PLoS ONE. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0028991

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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.