Culiseta annulata – just a biting nuisance or a deadly foe?

Our basic knowledge on the possible relationship between biting activity of mosquito vectors and the spread of cancer is scarce and patchy [1–3]. Depinay et al. [4] and Schneider and Higgs [5] have shown that mosquito saliva has the capacity to suppress the human immune system, which is regarded as a pre-requisite to infectious agents causing cancers. Furthermore, it has been argued that anopheline mosquitoes could vector overlooked viruses, which can act as carcinogenic agents [6,7]. In addition, earlier it has been shown that Aedes aegypti (L.) is able to transfer tumour cells of hamster reticulum cell sarcoma through subsequent feeding events on vertebrate hosts [8,9]