Mosquito bites are like a gross form of French kissing — the insects swap your blood with their saliva, and leave a trail of salivary secretions behind like mosquito cooties. Some of those compounds prevent clotting as the insects slurp up your blood. Now researchers find mosquito spit aggravates your immune system for days afterward. The findings could help scientists develop vaccines for mosquito-born diseases like Zika.
Rebecca Rico-Hesse, a virologist at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, wanted to know how mosquitoes exploit our immune systems with their drool. So, she and her team exposed mice with human-like immune systems to live mosquitoes. Then, they sized up the mice’s immune response as it reacted to the mosquito spittle.
