Taiwanese scientists have cracked the genetic code of a tiny bloodsucker in an advancement of research on repellant and insecticide development, a study published this month in the journal Insect Biochemistry and Molecular Biology showed.
Forcipomyia taiwana, commonly known in Chinese as the “tiny black mosquito” (小黑蚊), is a species of blood-sucking insect that “wreaks havoc” throughout Taiwan, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said.
Understanding the receptors that enable the sense of smell in female tiny black mosquitoes is a crucial step in creating lures for traps or repellents, said Lin Ming-te (林明德), study coauthor and associate professor at Tzu Chi University’s Department of Molecular Biology and Human Genetics
Photo: Hua Meng-ching, Taipei Times
The team’s analysis of the blood-sucking midges’ genetic materials revealed that they possess 134 of 156 unique olfactory receptors of the Ceratopogonidae family, he told a news conference in Hualien yesterday.
Many of the midges’ olfactory receptors find expression only in females, the sex of the species that bite humans for blood before laying eggs during the spawning season, Lin said.
This means chemicals can be developed to target the receptors, he said.
Extracting enough genetic material to analyze the insect was difficult because they are miniscule, only about one-third the size of common fruit flies, he said, adding that the team scoured the campus for samples.
The significant variation between the genetics of each midge frustrated the genome assembly, Lin said.
The team found that the genetic material could be harvested from a clutch of 20 eggs laid by the same female, eliminating the variation problem, he said.
A complete map of the midge’s genes opens the way for further research into identifying any resistance the insect might have to insecticides, and the history and path of their evolution and spread, Lin said.
The team plans to publish the complete genome of the tiny black mosquito on a open-access Web site to encourage further study of the species, he said.
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