TED演讲：细菌是怎样交流的(10)

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　　And this one I'm just using the interspecies molecule¹, but the logic² is exactly the same. 在这里，我们只是使用跨菌种分子，但是思维逻辑是一模一样的。

　　So what you know is that when that bacterium³ gets into the animal, in this case, a mouse, it doesn't initiate⁴ virulence⁵ right away. 你们都知道，当细菌进入动物体内，以此为例，对这只老鼠，它并不会马上启动致病机制。

　　It gets in, it starts growing, it starts secreting⁶ its quorum⁷ sensing molecules⁸. 它进入，开始增殖，开始分泌它的聚量感应分子。

　　It recognizes when it has enough bacteria that now they're going to launch their attack, and the animal dies. 当累积到足够数量时，细菌能识别，并开始发起攻击，然后老鼠就死了。

　　And so what we've been able to do is to give these virulent⁹ infections, 我们所做的是在致病感染的同时，

　　but we give them in conjunction with our anti-quorum sensing molecules 加入我们的“反聚量感应分子”，

　　so these are molecules that look kind of like the real thing, but they're a little bit different which I've depicted¹⁰ on this slide. 也就是看起来很像真的“聚量感应分子”的物质，但是，正如同我在幻灯上指出的，它们之间有一点点不同。

　　And what we now know is that if we treat the animal with a pathogenic bacterium -- a multi-drug-resistant pathogenic bacterium 我们现在发现，如果让实验动物感染一种具有多重耐药性的致病细菌，

　　in the same time we give our anti-quorum sensing molecule, in fact, the animal lives. 但是同时，我们施予“反聚量感应分子”治疗，动物就能够存活。

　　And so we think that this is the next generation of antibiotics¹² and it's going to get us around, at least initially¹³, this big problem of resistance. 我们认为这应该是下一代的抗生素，它将能够让我们，至少在开始阶段，解决耐药性细菌的问题。

　　So what I hope you think, is that bacteria can talk to each other, they use chemicals as their words, 我希望你们也能认为，细菌可以彼此交谈，它们使用化学物质当作语言，

　　they have an incredibly complicated chemical lexicon¹⁴ that we're just now starting to learn about. 它们拥有极端复杂的化学语汇，我们现在才刚刚要开始学习这些语汇。

　　And of course what that allows bacteria to do is to be multicellular. 当然，也因为这些语汇，使细菌得以变得像多细胞生物。

　　Right? And so in the spirit of TED¹¹ they're doing things together because it makes a difference. 所以，就像TED的精神一样，它们彼此合作，因为这样才能有一番作为。

　　Right? So what happens is that bacteria have these collective behaviors 细菌因为有这些集体行为，

　　and they can carry out tasks that they could never accomplish if they simply acted as individuals. 所以可以执行一些如果是单枪匹马是永远无法完成的任务。

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