Mole-indicator

A new "tattoo" in the form of a mole will appear on the skin if it detects a dangerous disease

Evgenia Efimova, Vesti

If we do not talk about the sacred meanings of tattoos, then today their task is to decorate the body, please the eye or remind of important life events. But in the future, drawings on the skin may have another function. For example, they can become real biomedical devices capable of warning a person about health problems in advance.

Not so long ago, Swiss researchers created a prototype of a biomedical tattoo, which becomes visible only if the level of calcium in the blood increases.

Of course, this is not an ordinary tattoo in the simple sense of the word. Biotechnologists have designed human cells in a special way, which, in fact, constitute a "tattoo". Such cells contain a calcium-sensitive receptor. The cells themselves are "packed" into an implant, which is placed under the skin. The system can monitor the level of calcium in the blood.

If the level of calcium in the blood exceeds the threshold value and remains at this level for a long period, then a whole signaling cascade is triggered, which leads to the production of melanin in genetically modified cells. That is, when cells "feel" an increase in calcium levels, they appear on the skin in the form of a dark spot, similar to a mole.

The resulting spot can be seen with the naked eye. The appearance of such a "tattoo" on the skin will signal that not the best processes are taking place in the body and it would be necessary to see a doctor.

"After the spot appears, the implant carrier should consult a doctor for further examination. The stain does not mean that a person will die soon," says Martin Fussenegger, a professor at the Swiss Higher Technical School of Zurich. It signals that additional examinations are needed, but they must be passed.

Why calcium? According to scientists, as soon as various types of tumors begin to develop in the body, it is the calcium content in the blood that increases. And by fixing this indicator, it is possible at a very early stage to catch the four most common types of cancer – prostate, lung, colon and breast.

And as you know, early detection of the disease significantly increases the chances of survival. For example, with timely detection of breast cancer, up to 98 percent of patients get rid of it.

"Today, patients go to the doctor only when the tumor begins to cause problems. Unfortunately, by this point it is often too late," Fussenegger notes in a press release. And the "tattoo" developed by scientists works long before cancer can be noticed even with the help of standard diagnostic methods.

Of course, the efficiency of the concept had to be tested in practice. To this end, scientists implanted engineered cells under the skin of mice. The rodents had either a cancerous tumor that causes hypercalcemia, or a tumor that does not affect blood calcium levels.

As a result, "tattoos" appeared only on the skin of mice from the first group. Moreover, the animals had no other symptoms of tumors during the entire 38-day experiment, and only the appearance of a dark spot was a signal that there was something wrong with the body.

In addition, the prototype of the "tattoo" was tested on the skin of a pig: and again moles appeared only when the concentration of calcium reached a high level.

If we talk about using new technology to save people's lives, the authors of the study note that they still have a long way to go before clinical trials.

Meanwhile, they are confident that in the future such "tattoos" can become a useful diagnostic tool.

According to statistics, along with cardiovascular diseases, cancer has become one of the main causes of death in many countries. And many patients are diagnosed with a terrible diagnosis after the tumor causes irreparable harm to the human body. All this reduces the chances of a successful recovery. So it is difficult to overestimate the importance of the early diagnosis system.

The authors reported on the results of the study in a scientific article published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

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