Early diagnosis of cancer is important to reduce the mortality rate of patients and to increase the success rate of treatment. Along with the early diagnosis, an easy, economical, rapid, non-painful and non-invasive diagnostic method is also required for reducing the number of severe cancer patients. Many researches have been recently studied to discover and identify an odorant molecule specifically from tumor tissues or cancer patients’ blood, saliva, urine and exhaled breath. A previous study has suggested that 2-ethyl-1-hexanol might be a biomarker or one of the specific volatile organic compound (VOC) occurring in the lung cancer tissue and patient. In this study, we investigated a novel lung cancer diagnosis system using C. elegans, a nematode which responded to cancer-specific odorant molecules with chemotaxis behaviors, attraction or avoidance. C. elegans wild-type strains showed a specific and typical chemotaxis behavior responding to the 2-ehtyl-1-hexanol and cell culture media of normal lung fibroblast (MRC-5) and lung cancer cell (SK-MES-1), respectively. However, the mutant strain defective in a specific G protein α (odr-3) lost those specific behaviors. Taken together, the olfactory sensing of odorant molecules from cacer tissue has a potential for an easy, economical, rapid, non-invasive cancer diagnostic tool.

Non-invasive lung diagnosis system using odorant markers in Caenorhabditis elegans-on-a-chip

ACS Spring 2022

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.