FAlternatively, over thousands of years, humans may have learned about herbal remedies by observing the behavior of other animals. Navajo tribe credit Guide the brown bear to the Osha route (porterigusticum), used to relieve headaches, treat infections, and ward off insects.1 According to an Asian legend, when a mongoose was seen biting, Rauwolfia Serpentina Cobra leaves before fighting humans discovered Use as an antidote for snakebites.2 Although these folktales cannot be verified, their abundance suggests that animal self-medication has influenced human medical knowledge.
Studying fruit flies in the lab could provide inspiration for new cancer drugs, a new study says. current biology.3 A team led by neuroscientists at the University of California, Santa Barbara Craig Montell They found that flies with intestinal tumors ingest certain bitter compounds more frequently than healthy flies, which normally reject them. Ingestion of this compound produced strong and sustained antitumor effects in these flies, suggesting a potential self-medication strategy that could guide drug discovery.
Considering that flies rarely develop cancer due to their short lifespans, the research team engineered three cancer-like models to test whether tumors influence flies’ preferences for different compounds. It was created by They used three different transgenes to induce insect intestinal stem cells to proliferate and develop tumor-like characteristics. The researchers then tested healthy flies with tumors with either sucrose alone or a mixture of sucrose and one of four bitter compounds, including caffeine and the plant compound aristolochic acid (ARI). was selected. By measuring how often the flies ate the sucrose-alone or bitter meal options, the researchers determined how strongly they preferred one or the other.
Intestinal tumors did not alter the flies’ rejection response to three of these aversive compounds, but they did alter the flies’ taste preference for ARI. Two of the fly cancer models showed no preference for sucrose alone. They ate both dishes equally often. The third strain became more attracted to ARI than to sucrose alone. Remarkably, when the researchers evaluated the effects of ARI on tumors, they found that ARI suppressed cell proliferation. Intestinal tumor growth was inhibited for a long time even after taking it for just 2 days.
Montell and his colleagues then investigated the neural mechanisms behind this change in taste. The tumor may be altering the response of the fly’s bitter-sensing taste receptor neurons to ARI, or this interaction may be followed by changes in the brain, or both. There is a possibility. To test their first hypothesis, the researchers performed electrophysiological experiments on taste-sensing cells in the fly’s proboscis and legs. They found that these peripheral neurons responded no differently to ARI in flies with intestinal tumors than in control flies. Therefore, changes in taste preference are likely to occur in the central nervous system, although the details are still unclear.
“[The findings] “This suggests that there is something in the cancer that is changing the brain so that this compound is no longer aversive.” jeremy bohnigeris a cancer neuroscientist at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory but did not participate in the study. “The next step…is to determine which neurons or groups of neurons in the brain regulate this process. How do tumors change these cells so that they receive the same signals from the taste of this compound?” , do we interpret it differently?”
Unfortunately, despite their tumor suppressive effects, ARIs cannot be developed as drugs because they are too toxic to the kidneys and liver. However, this research approach could open a promising avenue for discovering pharmaceutical compounds. For Montel, that’s actually the most exciting outcome of this research. Drosophila As an animal model for self-medication and, by extension, as a system to screen thousands of molecules for potential new drugs against gastrointestinal cancer. “The first screen searches for chemicals such as: [gut tumor-bearing flies] Your preference will increase. . “Then we look at which of the things we find actually extend lifespan,” he explained. Scientists have previously used fruit flies to: screening For cancer drugs, Montell said, “This is conceptually different because you’re using self-medication as a primary screening, but people haven’t done anything like that before. ”4
