Paper details

Hearing is essential for malaria mosquitoes, as the recognition of mating partners is based on the acoustic detection of their wing-beats. These acoustic interactions take place in crepuscular swarms, which can be formed by up to thousands of mosquitoes and that are therefore very noisy environments.

To overcome this challenge, mosquito ears have evolved as one of the most complex sensory organs in insects. We have recently discovered that a unique feature of mosquito ears across insects is their efferent innervation. Efferent fibers release the biogenic amines serotonin and octopamine and the inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA.

Octopamine signalling in the mosquito ear

In the lab, we are investigating how these different neurotransmitters modulate the mosquito auditory physiology and aid mating partner detection. For this talk, I would like to focus on our unpublished data about octopamine activity. Octopamine is particularly interesting from a mosquito control perspective as it is not found in vertebrate and could be targeted pharmacologically with minimal off-target effects in humans.

Using a combined genetic, physiological and behavioural approach, we show how enhancing or knocking-out octopaminergic signalling affects mosquito hearing, swarming behaviour and reproduction. I would also like to discuss the implications that this system could have for the fight against mosquito borne diseases.

References:

1 Andrés M, Su MP, Albert J, Lauren J. Cator. (2020) Buzzkill: Targeting the mosquito auditory system. Current Opinion in Insect Science 40: 11-17
2 Su M, Andrés M, Boyd-Gibbins N, Somers J, Albert JT. (2018) Sex and Species Specific Hearing Mechanisms in Mosquito Flagellar Ears. Nat Commun. 9 (1): 3911
3 Andrés M, Seifert M, Spalthoff C, Warren B, Weiss L, Winkler M, Pauls S, Göpfert MC. (2016). Auditory efferent system modulates mosquito hearing. Current biology 8; 26 (15): 2028-3615