Making Skeeters Hold Their Urine Could Prevent Disease
Making Skeeter's Hold Their Urine Could Prevent Disease
I think we are doing these little guys a good service collecting pee!
Preventing skeeters from urinating as they feed on blood could prevent the spread of dengue fever, yellow fever and other diseases, say researchers writing in the American Journal of Physiology.
When skeeters consume and process blood meals, they must urinate to prevent fluid and salt overloads that can kill them. The research team found that blocking a protein in the renal tubules of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes prevents them from relieving themselves. The work may lead to the development of new insecticides to disrupt the mosquito's renal system, which contributes to a mosquito's survival after feeding on blood.
"Blocking the function of this protein in natural populations of mosquitoes may limit their ability to survive the physiological stresses of a blood meal and to further transmit viruses," said Peter Piermarini, the paper's lead author.
The mosquitoes also "have to undergo rapid urination when feeding, or they can't fly away," Piermarini said. "Too much weight will impair the mosquito's flight performance, like an aircraft with too much payload. They may become more susceptible to being swatted by their host or eaten by a predator."