Ants detect cancer cells through volatile organic compounds.
Biological sciences
Cancer
Cell biology
Journal
iScience
ISSN: 2589-0042
Titre abrégé: iScience
Pays: United States
ID NLM: 101724038
Informations de publication
Date de publication:
18 Mar 2022
18 Mar 2022
Historique:
received:
24
09
2021
revised:
13
12
2021
accepted:
17
02
2022
entrez:
14
3
2022
pubmed:
15
3
2022
medline:
15
3
2022
Statut:
epublish
Résumé
Cancer is among the world's leading causes of death. A critical challenge for public health is to develop a noninvasive, inexpensive, and efficient tool for early cancer detection. Cancer cells are characterized by an altered metabolism, producing unique patterns of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that can be used as cancer biomarkers. Dogs can detect VOCs via olfactory associative learning, but training dogs is costly and time-consuming. Insects, such as ants, have a refined sense of smell and can be rapidly trained. We show that individual ants need only a few training trials to learn, memorize, and reliably detect the odor of human cancer cells. These performances rely on specific VOC patterns, as shown by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry. Our findings suggest that using ants as living tools to detect biomarkers of human cancer is feasible, fast, and less laborious than using other animals.
Identifiants
pubmed: 35281730
doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.103959
pii: S2589-0042(22)00229-2
pmc: PMC8914326
doi:
Types de publication
Journal Article
Langues
eng
Pagination
103959Informations de copyright
© 2022 The Author(s).
Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts
The authors declare no competing interests.
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