Chew Gum, Detect Flu: A Tasty New Test Ahead

As flu season approaches in the northern hemisphere, researchers may soon swap nasal swabs with chewing gum as a flu test. A newly developed molecular sensor responds to influenza by releasing a distinct thyme-like flavor. Scientists hope to embed this into gum or lozenges, allowing simple at-home screenings to curb pre-symptomatic spread.

Current diagnostics rely on PCR nasal swabs, which are accurate but costly and slow, or at-home lateral flow tests that miss those infected before showing symptoms. Because individuals are contagious before symptoms appear, experts envision the tongue itself becoming a universal detector — cheap, accessible, and available to all.

How Does This Sensor Detect Flu?

As written in their published study, Lorenz Meinel and colleagues address these flu detection shortcomings “by switching away from complex detectors and machinery and toward a detector that is available for anyone, everywhere and anytime: the tongue.”

The team developed a molecular sensor that releases a flavor that human tongues can detect — thymol, found in the spice thyme. The sensor is based on a substrate of the influenza virus glycoprotein called neuraminidase (the “N” in H1N1). Influenza viruses use neuraminidase to break certain bonds on the host’s cell to infect it. So, the researchers synthesized a neuraminidase substrate and attached a thymol molecule to it. Thymol registers as a strong herbal taste on the tongue. Theoretically, when the synthesized sensor is in the mouth of someone infected with the flu, the viruses lob off the thymol molecules, and their flavor is detected by the tongue.

What Did Experiments Reveal?

After developing their molecular sensor, the researchers conducted lab tests with it. In vials with human saliva from people diagnosed with the flu, the sensor released free thymol within 30 minutes. When they tested the sensor on human and mouse cells, it didn’t change the cells’ functioning. Next, Meinel and team hope to start human clinical trials in about two years to confirm the sensor’s thymol taste sensations in people with pre- and post-symptomatic influenza.

Could Gum Protect High-Risk Groups?

If incorporated into chewing gums or lozenges, “this sensor could be a rapid and accessible first-line screening tool to help protect people in high-risk environments,” says Meinel.

The authors acknowledge funding from the Federal Ministry of Research and Education (now called the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space) and have registered a patent with the European Patent Office on this technology.

Source-American Chemical Society