CHAPTER 6 

 CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK 



Conclusions 



This dissertation has covered various facets of applying mass spectrometry to 

 elucidating the chemical basis for mosquito attraction to human hosts. The initial 

 concern was the utilization of a sampling method which minimally biased the 

 compounds to be detected while providing some discrimination against compounds 

 which are not of interest, i.e. non-volatile components. This was accomplished by 

 desorbing volatiles off handled glass beads. Host attraction is known to be 

 transferrable to glass and it is believed that the glass actually concentrates the 

 attractant(s), as well as many other compounds. 



The sampling method chosen for the majority of work was cryo-focusing, with 

 some studies employing microscale purge and trap. Simple cryo-focusing provides 

 the benefit of narrowing sample bands on the GC column and the detection of gas- 

 phase emanations with minimal sample discrimination. The additional step of 

 employing Tenax and cryo-focusing traps (in microscale purge and trap) provided 

 benefits with respect to the removal of the abundant carboxylic acids (as well as 

 other highly polar compounds) by the metal in the system; however, it is not known 

 at this time if this also removes potential attractants as well. The data from 



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