Elevation of dopamine level reduces host-seeking activity in the adult female mosquito Aedes albopictus

Background: mosquito-borne viruses are transmitted to human hosts via blood-feeding behavior of female mosquitoes. female mosquitoes seek a host to take blood meals (host-seeking behavior). in order to prevent virus infections,it is important to understand how they modulate host-seeking behavior. dopamine (da) in the central nervous system acts as a neuromediator that regulates a variety of behaviors in insects. in female mosquitoes,host-seeking behavior increases when da levels in the head decline after emergence. however,it remains unclear whether da directly modulates host-seeking behavior in female mosquitoes. the aim of this study was to examine whether changes in da levels in the head affects host-seeking activity in the adult female mosquito aedes albopictus (ae. albopictus). findings: we compared host-seeking behavior in one group of emerging female adults treated with l-β-3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine (l-dopa),the precursor of da,(l-dopa group),with that in an untreated control (control group) after confirming elevation of head da in l-dopa group by using high-performance liquid chromatography. the content of head da in l-dopa group significantly remained higher than that in controls on all days examined. the host-seeking activity in the control group showed a gradual increase over the 6-day experimental period. in contrast,there was no such increase in the host-seeking activity in the l-dopa group. therefore,the host-seeking activity of l-dopa group was significantly lower than that of the controls between day 3 and 6 post-emergence. conclusion: our results indicate that elevation of da level reduces host-seeking activity in adult female mosquito ae. albopictus. © 2012 wang et al.; licensee biomed central ltd.