| Title: | New methods for field collection of human skin volatiles and perspectives for their application in the chemical ecology of human-pathogen-vector interactions |
| Author(s): | Dormont L; Bessiere JM; McKey D; Cohuet A; |
| Address: | "Centre d'Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive, CNRS UMR 5175, 1919 Route de Mende, 34293 Montpellier Cedex 5, France. laurent.dormont@cefe.cnrs.fr" |
| ISSN/ISBN: | 1477-9145 (Electronic) 0022-0949 (Linking) |
| Abstract: | "Odours emitted by human skin are of great interest to biologists in many fields, with practical applications in forensics, health diagnostic tools and the ecology of blood-sucking insect vectors of human disease. Convenient methods are required for sampling human skin volatiles under field conditions. We experimentally compared four modern methods for sampling skin odours: solvent extraction, headspace solid-phase micro-extraction (SPME), and two new techniques not previously used for the study of mammal volatiles, contact SPME and dynamic headspace with a chromatoprobe design. These methods were tested and compared both on European subjects under laboratory conditions and on young African subjects under field conditions. All four methods permitted effective trapping of skin odours, including the major known human skin volatile compounds. In both laboratory and field experiments, contact SPME, in which the time of collection was restricted to 3 min, provided results very similar to those obtained with classical headspace SPME, a method that requires 45 min of collection. Chromatoprobe sampling also proved to be very sensitive, rapid and convenient for the collection of human-produced volatiles in natural settings. Both contact SPME and chromatoprobe design may considerably facilitate the study of human skin volatiles under field conditions, opening new possibilities for examining the olfactory cues mediating the host-seeking behaviour of mosquito vectors implicated in the transmission of major diseases" |
| Keywords: | "Adolescent Adult Animals Child Child, Preschool Chromatography, Gas *Ecological and Environmental Phenomena Female Foot Humans Insect Vectors/*physiology Male Middle Aged Odorants/*analysis Skin/*chemistry Solid Phase Microextraction/*methods Volatile Org;" |
| Notes: | "MedlineDormont, Laurent Bessiere, Jean-Marie McKey, Doyle Cohuet, Anna eng Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't England 2013/04/13 J Exp Biol. 2013 Aug 1; 216(Pt 15):2783-8. doi: 10.1242/jeb.085936. Epub 2013 Apr 11" |
