{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"institution":[{"name":"bioRxiv"}],"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,23]],"date-time":"2026-10-23T21:19:25Z","timestamp":1792790365302,"version":"4.5.0"},"posted":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,24]]},"group-title":"Genomics","reference-count":0,"publisher":"openRxiv","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,24]],"date-time":"2026-09-24T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1790208000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"award":["Investigator Program"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["Investigator Program"]}],"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/006w34k90","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"name":"Simons Foundation","award":["718235"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["718235"]}],"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/01cmst727","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"crossref"}]},{"name":"Simons Foundation","award":["718234"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["718234"]}],"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/01cmst727","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"crossref"}]},{"name":"European Molecular Biology Organization","award":["EMBO ALTF 1103-2019"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["EMBO ALTF 1103-2019"]}],"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/04wfr2810","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"crossref"}]},{"name":"European Molecular Biology Organization","award":["EMBO ALTF 286-2019"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["EMBO ALTF 286-2019"]}],"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/04wfr2810","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"crossref"}]},{"name":"European Molecular Biology Organization","award":["EMBO ALTF 664-2022"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["EMBO ALTF 664-2022"]}],"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/04wfr2810","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"crossref"}]},{"name":"Kavli Neural Systems Institute","award":["Postdoctoral Fellowship"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["Postdoctoral Fellowship"]}]},{"award":["K99GM151471"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["K99GM151471"]}],"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/04q48ey07","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"award":["Group Leader Award"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["Group Leader Award"]}],"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/01hhn8329","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"name":"International Human Frontier Science Program Organization","award":["LT0012\/2023-L"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["LT0012\/2023-L"]}],"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/02ebx7v45","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"crossref"}]},{"name":"State of Illinois","award":["Used Tire Management and Emergency Public Health funds"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["Used Tire Management and Emergency Public Health funds"]}],"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/025cbjw81","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"crossref"}]},{"name":"Stavros Niarchos Foundation","award":["Grant to the SNF Institute for Global Infectious Disease Research at The Rockefeller University"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["Grant to the SNF Institute for Global Infectious Disease Research at The Rockefeller University"]}],"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/0210rze73","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"crossref"}]},{"name":"Wellcome Sanger Institute","award":["Wellcome Trust grant 206194"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["Wellcome Trust grant 206194"]}],"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/05cy4wa09","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"crossref"}]},{"award":["HQ Special Ops"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["HQ Special Ops"]}],"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/006w34k90","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":[],"accepted":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,24]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>Complex traits that span multiple tissues and systems often integrate large numbers of genes across development, physiology, and behavior, making it challenging to identify their essential components. Blood feeding in mosquitoes is one such trait. It is ancestral to the mosquito family, maintained in most species for ~200 million years, and was independently lost in three lineages. These convergent losses offer a natural experiment to discover the genetic, physiological, and neural features required for blood feeding. We assembled high-quality, chromosome-level genomes for seven mosquito species, along with whole-brain tomographic reconstructions. Our study spanned the three known non-blood-feeding lineages (Toxorhynchites rutilus, Topomyia yanbarensis, and Malaya genurostris), blood-feeding relatives, and the variable blood feeder Wyeomyia smithii. Comparing orthologous gene clades, we detected convergent gene loss specific to the three lineages that had lost blood feeding. The losses include the salivary platelet-aggregation inhibitor Aegyptin, blood-activated serine proteases such as Chymotrypsin-1 and 2, and a carboxylesterase expressed in the female fat body and brain glia. The loss of blood feeding also extended to chemosensation. Non-blood feeders lack two odorant-binding protein clades, two ionotropic receptor clades associated with blood-component taste detection, and odorant receptor clades expressed in a discrete, strongly female-biased population of antennal neurons. Female-biased head gene expression was reduced in non-blood feeders. Finally, examination of whole-brain tomographic reconstructions across the species revealed smaller antennal lobes in non-blood-feeding females, consistent with reduced olfactory input. Together, these findings identify a compact set of genes, expression patterns, and brain regions associated with blood feeding, offering an evolutionary entry point for functional dissection of how this complex and dangerous trait is built and dismantled.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.64898\/2026.09.23.753750","type":"posted-content","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,25]],"date-time":"2026-09-25T01:20:14Z","timestamp":1790299214000},"source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":1,"title":["Convergent evolutionary loss of chemosensory and blood-feeding pathways in non-blood-feeding mosquitoes"],"prefix":"10.64898","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-2903-5082","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Leah","family":"Houri-Zeevi","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"The Rockefeller 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