Genetic Engineering of a Bed Bug That Doesn't Bite

Just because pesticides don't work doesn't mean that there is absolutely nothing that can be done about them. Laundering clothes and bed linens and then drying them at a temperature of at least 50 °C (122 °F) for at least two minutes will kill them. It's possible to heat an entire building to 45 °C (113 °F) for just two hours and kill all the bugs, although this will also damage furniture and electronics. Keeping bedspreads off the floor and keeping luggage on a stand also helps, but the simple truth is, it's really hard to get rid of bed bugs without poisoning them. In a recently published study, scientists reported that it really is possible to kill bed bugs with bed bug sprays, but it takes 30,000 times more insecticide to kill recently collected bed bugs that it takes to kill bed bugs that have been bred in the lab (and haven't had a chance to mate with resistant bed bugs) for 30 years.

To find a way to prevent a new world-wide epidemic of bed bugs, scientists recently succeeded in using genome sequencing to create a first time ever map of bed bug genetics. To their surprise, the scientists learned that:

• Bed bugs have changed very little over the last sixty million years except in their choice of hosts. Ancient bed bugs fed on prehistoric bats.
• Bed bugs don't just transmit their genes through sex. They can also "borrow" genes from bacteria and use bacteria to pass genes to other bed bugs. This means that it's even easier for bed bugs to become pesticide-resistant. They don't even have to wait to hatch baby bed bugs. Bacteria in bed bug poop can carry the pesticide resistance genes from one bed bug to another (which is another reason to clean or discard mattresses or upholstery that contain the tiny black dots of bed bug feces or the faint, sickening odor of crushed bed bugs).
• Bed bugs have a very limited number of genes related to their ability to see, taste, and smell. They sense what is necessary to find a human being to feed on and to find a mate, but that's about it.
• Many of the genes in a bed bug's body are activated only after the bed bug feeds on a human host. Bed bugs need us for their development and not just for food.

READ Do You Know Who You're Sleeping With? Protect Yourself From Bed Bugs

• Bed bugs develop new genes that help them survive when they live with bats. Bed bugs coming from bat caves are especially hard to get out of human habitations.

Examination of the bed bug genome hasn't given scientists anything to keep bed bugs from evolving into our (to borrow a term from Washington Post writer Rachel Feltman) "mattress-dwelling overlords." Bed bugs will continue to cause people to cringe and shudder for a few years yet. But the more scientists study the bed bug genome, the more likely they are to find a gene that can be activated to create a bed bug that doesn't bite.