Ants Looking for Sugar Water is New Advancement in Detecting Cancer, Study Shows

A recent study suggested that the next development in detecting cancer may involve ants searching for sugar water.

Even though ants lack a nose, they are still capable of smelling out cancer. The insects have a remarkable sense of smell and can detect tumors thanks to the numerous olfactory receptors on their antennae.

Cancerous Tumors, Volatile Organic Compounds, and Ant

Volatile organic compounds, which are released specifically by cancerous tumors, are frequently found in bodily fluids like sweat and urine, as well as in breath vapor. According to a recent study that was published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, ants can detect those substances in the urine. According to the study's authors, the insects might one day be used as a less expensive, non-invasive cancer detection method.

Debajit Saha, a biomedical engineer who experiments with cancer-detecting locusts at Michigan State University, said that this is a fascinating path. Saha, who was not involved in the new study, adds that using insect biology to detect diseases is a novel and extremely effective strategy.

Formica Fusca

Lead study author Baptiste Piqueret, a Sorbonne Paris North University ethologist, was aware that ants could recognize the volatile organic compounds emanating from cancer cells. He had previously found a way to teach the Formica fusca species of ants to recognize cancer cells and normal cells that were being grown in culture. He has now advanced the research by using actual tumors. His previous study was publiskhed in iScience.

Xenografting and Rewards

Piqueret and his team first used the xenografting method to transplant human breast cancer tumors into mice and allow them to develop. Then they took urine samples from healthy and tumor-ridden mice.

The researchers taught the ants to link the smell of tumors with a reward by dabbing a drop of sugar water next to the urine of cancer-stricken animals. The insects lingered around the urine of cancerous mice for about 20% longer than that of healthy mice when the team took away the sugar water because they were seeking a sweet treat.

The ants' smell association was established in just three training sessions or about 10 minutes overall. That's a lot quicker than training dogs to detect cancer, which can take up to six months.

They weren't expecting to see it that quickly, according to Piqueret.

Early Detection of Cancer

Around one in every six deaths worldwide is caused by cancer, making it a major cause of death. Early detection is essential for effective treatment, but current screening techniques can be invasive or prohibitively expensive.

While the idea of an early-detection tool powered by ants is intriguing, Piqueret emphasizes that the study is merely a proof of concept and is still a long way from any kind of clinical application. Compared with a highly controlled lab environment with mice as subjects, real-life patients will introduce many variables-including age, sex, and diet-that could affect results. Additionally, the tumors found in the recent study were substantial for mice.

The researchers will then expand their study by using urine from people who have specific cancers, to determine how small a tumor can be before going undetected, Scientific American reports.

In the meantime, patients will provide a urine sample that ants can analyze in a separate lab, so there's no need to stress about one day having ants swarm all over the human body for science, according to Piqueret.