FAlternatively, over thousands of years humans may have learned about herbal remedies by observing the behavior of other animals. Navajo Nation credit transaction Leading the brown bear to the osha root (Ligusticum porteri), used to relieve headaches, treat infections, or repel insects.1 According to Asian legend, if you see a mongoose chewing, Lauvolpia Serpentina Cobra leaves before fighting humans find Used as an antidote for snake bites.2 Although it is impossible to verify these tales, their abundance suggests that animal self-medication has influenced human medical knowledge.
Studying fruit flies in the lab could inspire the development of new anti-cancer drugs, a new study suggests. current biology.3 A team led by a neuroscientist at the University of California, Santa Barbara Craig Montel They found that flies with intestinal tumors choose to consume certain bitter compounds more often than healthy flies, who generally reject them. Ingestion of this compound resulted in strong and sustained antitumor effects in these flies, suggesting a potential self-treatment strategy that could guide drug discovery.
Considering that flies rarely develop cancer due to their short lifespans, the research team artificially created three cancer-like models to test whether tumors affect the flies’ preference for various compounds. Using three different transgenes, they induced the insect’s intestinal stem cells to proliferate and develop tumor-like characteristics. The researchers then allowed tumor-bearing and healthy fruit flies to choose between sucrose alone or a mixture of sucrose and one of four bitter compounds, including caffeine and the plant compound aristolochic acid (ARI). By measuring how often the flies ate sucrose alone or the bitter meal option, the team determined how much the flies preferred one over the other.
Intestinal tumors did not alter the flies’ rejection of three of these aversive compounds, but did alter their taste preferences for ARIs. Two of the fly cancer models have now been shown to have no preference for sucrose alone. They ate both culinary choices with equal frequency. The third strain was much more attracted to ARI than to sucrose alone. Specifically, when researchers evaluated the effects of ARI on tumors, they found that ARI inhibited cell proliferation. Even two days of consumption has been shown to provide long-term inhibition of intestinal tumor growth.
Montell and his colleagues explored the neural mechanisms behind these taste changes. The tumor may alter the way the bitter taste receptor neurons in flies respond to ARI, or changes may occur in the brain after this interaction, or both. To test the first hypothesis, the team conducted electrophysiological experiments on taste cells in the flies’ noses and legs. They found that these peripheral neurons did not respond differently to ARI in flies with intestinal tumors than in controls. Changes in taste preferences therefore likely occur in the central nervous system, but the details are still unknown.
“[The findings] “This suggests that there is something about cancer that changes the brain in such a way that this compound no longer displays disgust.” Jeremy Bornigeris a cancer neuroscientist at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory who was not involved in the current study. “The next step… is to determine which neurons or which groups of neurons in the brain regulate this process. How does the tumor alter these cells so that they receive the same signals from the taste of these compounds and interpret them differently?”
Unfortunately, despite their tumor suppressive effects, ARIs are too toxic to the kidneys and liver to be developed into drugs. But the study’s approach could open a promising path for discovering medical compounds. For Montell, this is actually the most exciting result of this work. fruit fly It serves as an animal model for autologous treatment and therefore as a system to screen thousands of molecules for potential new drugs against gastrointestinal carcinoma. “The initial screen looks for chemicals such as: [gut tumor-bearing flies] Preferences have increased. . .And which of the things you discovered actually extends lifespan,” he explained. Scientists have previously used fruit flies to: screening “Conceptually, it’s going to be different because it uses self-treatment as the primary screening test, so people haven’t done that before,” Montell said.4
