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Living Biosensors for Odor Detection

A special issue of Sensors (ISSN 1424-8220). This special issue belongs to the section "Biomedical Sensors".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 April 2022) | Viewed by 6610

Special Issue Editor

Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology (KRIBB), Daejeon 305-333, Republic of Korea
Interests: biomimetic e-nose sensor; olfactory sensor; gas sensor
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Some animals with excellent olfactory discrimination capabilities (i.e., dogs, mice, bees, etc.) can be conditioned to sniff and identify target volatiles. The conditioned animal can quickly recognize the unique odor of volatile organic compounds and exhibit various signal behaviors, acting as an animal nose sensor. Animal nose sensors are mostly applied in the field of drug detection dogs or mine/explosive detection, and recently, some medical applications such as cancer and tuberculosis detection have been attempted. When it comes to medical applications, animal nose sensors, which utilize the animal’s sense of smell to detect disease-specific odors, are a technology that has all of these non-invasive and early detection benefits. There is growing interest in detection animals in the areas of forensic science, land security, and disease diagnosis.

We invite original papers (i.e., research articles and review articles) that address behavioral odor detection by animals. The topics of the Special Issue “Animal Nose Sensors” include narcotics detection, explosive detection, environmental monitoring, food safety detection, and disease diagnostics using animal olfaction.

Dr. Moonil Kim
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • animal nose sensor
  • animal biosensor
  • odor detection
  • detection animal
  • olfactory behavior

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

14 pages, 2801 KiB  
Article
Multi-Odor Discrimination by Rat Sniffing for Potential Monitoring of Lung Cancer and Diabetes
by Yunkwang Oh, Ohseok Kwon, Sun-Seek Min, Yong-Beom Shin, Min-Kyu Oh and Moonil Kim
Sensors 2021, 21(11), 3696; https://doi.org/10.3390/s21113696 - 26 May 2021
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2845
Abstract
The discrimination learning of multiple odors, in which multi-odor can be associated with different responses, is important for responding quickly and accurately to changes in the external environment. However, very few studies have been done on multi-odor discrimination by animal sniffing. Herein, we [...] Read more.
The discrimination learning of multiple odors, in which multi-odor can be associated with different responses, is important for responding quickly and accurately to changes in the external environment. However, very few studies have been done on multi-odor discrimination by animal sniffing. Herein, we report a novel multi-odor discrimination system by detection rats based on the combination of 2-Choice and Go/No-Go (GNG) tasks into a single paradigm, in which the Go response of GNG was replaced by 2-Choice, for detection of toluene and acetone, which are odor indicators of lung cancer and diabetes, respectively. Three of six trained rats reached performance criterion, in 12 consecutive successful tests within a given set or over 12 sets with a success rate of over 90%. Through a total of 1300 tests, the trained animals (N = 3) showed multi-odor sensing performance with 88% accuracy, 87% sensitivity and 90% specificity. In addition, a dependence of behavior response time on odor concentrations under given concentration conditions was observed, suggesting that the system could be used for quantitative measurements. Furthermore, the animals’ multi-odor sensing performance has lasted for 45 days, indicating long-term stability of the learned multi-odor discrimination. These findings demonstrate that multi-odor discrimination can be achieved by rat sniffing, potentially providing insight into the rapid, accurate and cost-effective multi-odor monitoring in the lung cancer and diabetes. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Living Biosensors for Odor Detection)
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12 pages, 13133 KiB  
Article
Olfactory Detection of Toluene by Detection Rats for Potential Screening of Lung Cancer
by Yunkwang Oh, Oh-Seok Kwon, Sun-Seek Min, Yong-Beom Shin, Min-Kyu Oh and Moonil Kim
Sensors 2021, 21(9), 2967; https://doi.org/10.3390/s21092967 - 23 Apr 2021
Cited by 10 | Viewed by 3030
Abstract
Early detection is critical to successfully eradicating a variety of cancers, so the development of a new cancer primary screening system is essential. Herein, we report an animal nose sensor system for the potential primary screening of lung cancer. To establish this, we [...] Read more.
Early detection is critical to successfully eradicating a variety of cancers, so the development of a new cancer primary screening system is essential. Herein, we report an animal nose sensor system for the potential primary screening of lung cancer. To establish this, we developed an odor discrimination training device based on operant conditioning paradigms for detection of toluene, an odor indicator component of lung cancer. The rats (N = 15) were trained to jump onto a floating ledge in response to toluene-spiked breath samples. Twelve rats among 15 trained rats reached performance criterion in 12 consecutive successful tests within a given set, or over 12 sets, with a success rate of over 90%. Through a total of 1934 tests, the trained rats (N = 3) showed excellent performance for toluene detection with 82% accuracy, 83% sensitivity, 81% specificity, 80% positive predictive value (PPV) and 83% negative predictive value (NPV). The animals also acquired considerable performance for odor discrimination even in rigorous tests, validating odor specificity. Since environmental and long-term stability are important factors that can influence the sensing results, the performance of the trained rats was studied under specified temperature (20, 25, and 30 °C) and humidity (30%, 45%, and 60% RH) conditions, and monitored over a period of 45 days. At given conditions of temperature and humidity, the animal sensors showed an average accuracy within a deviation range of ±10%, indicating the excellent environmental stability of the detection rats. Surprisingly, the trained rats did not differ in retention of last odor discrimination when tested 45 days after training, denoting that the rats’ memory for trained odor is still available over a long period of time. When taken together, these results indicate that our odor discrimination training system can be useful for non-invasive breath testing and potential primary screening of lung cancer. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Living Biosensors for Odor Detection)
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