How mosquitoes handle a hot meal.

• Position: Insect Reproduction - Brief article

Mosquitoes make proteins to help them handle the stressful spike in body temperature that is prompted by their hot blood meals, a study at Ohio State University, Columbus, has found. The mosquito's eating pattern is inherently risky--taking a blood meal involves finding warm-blooded hosts, avoiding detection, penetrating tough skin, and evading any host immune response (as well as the slap of a human hand).

Scientists have determined in female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, a carrier of yellow fever, that the insects protect themselves by producing heat shock proteins, which bolster the integrity of other proteins and enzymes, in turn helping the mosquitoes digest the blood meal and maintain their ability to produce eggs.

Tests in bed bugs and two other types of mosquitoes (Culex pipiens and Anopheles gambiae, carriers of West Nile virus and malaria, respectively) show that these insects undergo a similar...