Making sure their sex life is no fun anymore! 😊
We seem to have learnt a lot about the sex life of mosquitos!
These researchers also suggested to make the hearing of sterile male mosquitos overactive so they can better compete with non deaf males.
"Genetic studies have revealed that when male mosquitoes lose their hearing, they also lose their sex lives. ...
Scientists have long known that hearing is the main sense used in mosquito mating. ... A few seconds of midair copulation, and the courtship is done. ...
Next, the researchers placed the deaf mosquitoes in a mixed population, and watched what happened. Deaf females had a harder time than usual attracting mates, but still managed to get the job done. Deaf males, however, didn’t respond at all to the waiting ladies, leaving all the fun to those with unimpaired hearing. That suggests that this is the sole sense males use to find mates. ...
Rather than knocking out the trpVa gene and making mosquitoes deaf, the team suggests that it could instead be made overactive in these sterile mosquitoes. ..."
In most species, the act of mating is a multisensory experience, so for the new study, researchers ... Using the CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing system, the team knocked out a gene called trpVa in the insects.
These mutant mosquitoes showed no reaction to sound whatsoever, and no electrical activity was detected in the neurons known to be associated with hearing. That confirmed that the gene edits had worked.
Already, male mosquitoes have been genetically engineered to be sterile, then released in various regions in recent years. The idea is that sterile males will still try to mate, but their partner's eggs won’t hatch. And conveniently, after females mate once, they don’t usually do so again, so the population comes down quickly.
The problem there is that the sterile males have to outcompete natural, virile males for female attention, so populations usually bounce back after a while. But what if the sterile bugs had a female-finding advantage over wild ones?
From the significance and abstract:
"Significance
The modes of communication required for mating in mosquitoes that transmit pathogens causing malaria, dengue, Zika, and other diseases are poorly understood. ... It is established that Aedes males are attracted to the female wingbeat. However, it was not known whether loss of hearing would just compromise or eradicate mating. We created deaf mosquitoes by eliminating the Transient Receptor Potential Va (TRPVa) channel—a protein required for sound-induced activation of auditory neurons. We found that mating was abolished [???] in deaf males, demonstrating that hearing and TRPVa are essential for male mating behavior. This work reveals a mode of communication that is strictly required for male mating success in a mosquito disease vector.
Abstract
Attraction and mating between male and female animals depend on effective communication between conspecifics. However, in mosquitoes, we have only a rudimentary understanding of the sensory cues and receptors critical for the communication that is essential for reproductive behavior. While it is known that male Aedes aegypti use sound to help them identify females, it is not unclear whether sound detection is absolutely required since other cues such as vision may also participate in mating behavior. To determine the effect of eliminating hearing on mating success, we knocked out the Ae. aegypti TRPVa channel ... Strikingly, mutation of trpVa eliminated mating behavior in males. In contrast, trpVa-null females mated, although this behavior was slightly delayed relative to wild-type females. Males and females produce sounds as they beat their wings at distinct frequencies during flight. Sound mimicking the female wingbeat induced flight, attraction, and copulatory-like behavior in wild-type males without females present, but not in trpVa-null males. Males are known to modulate their wingbeat frequencies before mating in the air, which is a phenomenon referred to as rapid frequency modulation (RFM). We found that RFM was absent in mosquitoes lacking TRPVa. We conclude that the requirement for trpVa and hearing for male reproductive behavior in Aedes is absolute, as mating in the deaf males is eliminated."
Deaf male mosquitoes don’t mate (original news release)
Deafness due to loss of a TRPV channel eliminates mating behavior in Aedes aegypti males (open access)
Fig. 3 Mutation of trpVa eliminates male mating behavior and delays female mating.
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