Some of the most notorious human viruses, including dengue and Zika, belong to a group of viruses called flaviviruses. They need mosquitoes to ferry them from host to host, and research now suggests they play an active role in ensuring that transfer occurs. The viruses are able to manipulate their hosts’ skin microbes so that they produce an increased amount of a chemical that attracts mosquitoes to the host, researchers from Tsinghua University in China report today (June 30) in Cell.
Lead author and Tsinghua University microbiologist Gong Cheng tells The Scientist in a written statement that he and his colleagues wanted to understand how mosquito-vectored viruses spread given that infected hosts are often vastly outnumbered by noninfected ones. He notes that “mosquitoes need to actively seek and feed on a viremic host to acquire infectious viral particles; however, the absolute number of infected individuals are very low,” oftentimes only ...
