| Title: | Ants detect cancer cells through volatile organic compounds |
| Author(s): | Piqueret B; Bourachot B; Leroy C; Devienne P; Mechta-Grigoriou F; d'Ettorre P; Sandoz JC; |
| Address: | "Laboratoire d'Ethologie Experimentale et Comparee UR 4443 (LEEC), Universite Sorbonne Paris Nord, 93430 Villetaneuse, France. Stress and Cancer Laboratory, Institut Curie, PSL Research University, Equipe labelisee Ligue Nationale Contre le Cancer, 26, rue d'Ulm, 75248 Paris Cedex 05, France. Inserm, U830, Paris F-75248, France. Institut Universitaire de France (IUF), Paris, France. Evolution, Genomes, Behaviour and Ecology, CNRS, IRD, Universite Paris-Saclay, 91190 Gif-sur-Yvette, France" |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.isci.2022.103959 |
| ISSN/ISBN: | 2589-0042 (Electronic) 2589-0042 (Linking) |
| Abstract: | "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" |
| Keywords: | Biological sciences Cancer Cell biology; |
| Notes: | "PubMed-not-MEDLINEPiqueret, Baptiste Bourachot, Brigitte Leroy, Chloe Devienne, Paul Mechta-Grigoriou, Fatima d'Ettorre, Patrizia Sandoz, Jean-Christophe eng 2022/03/15 iScience. 2022 Feb 22; 25(3):103959. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.103959. eCollection 2022 Mar 18" |
