科学美国人60秒 早在抗生素出现之前, 刺猬体内就出现了抗药菌(2)

（单词翻译）

So the big question was, why hedgehogs carry so much mecC MRSA?

因此，最大的问题是，为什么刺猬携带了这么多mecC MRSA呢？

To find out, Larsen went to the library…

为了找出答案，拉森去了图书馆…

…where I came across an old study from the 1960s which showed that a particular fungus¹ in hedgehogs is able to produce a penicillin²-like antibiotic³ that is very similar to methicillin.

在那里，我偶然找到了一项20世纪60年代的旧研究，这项研究展示了刺猬体内的一种特定真菌能够产生一种类似青霉素的抗生素，这种抗生素与甲氧西林非常相似。

So hedgehogs with this particular skin fungus would naturally be exposed to penicillin.

因此，带有这种特殊皮肤真菌的刺猬自然会接触青霉素。

And that could have launched an evolutionary⁵ arms race that drove the hedgehog’s resident bacteria to evolve resistance.

这可能引发了一场进化军备竞赛，促使刺猬体内的细菌进化出抗体。

This was a real eureka moment and led us to hypothesize that wild hedgehogs have been a natural reservoir of mecC MRSA long before penicillin and methicillin came on the market.

当时我们灵光乍现，猜想早在青霉素和甲氧西林在市场上出现之前，野生刺猬一直都是mecC MRSA的天然储备库。

To confirm this suspicion, Larsen and his colleagues screened hedgehogs from Europe and New Zealand and found that hedgehogs in Scandinavia and the UK harbor a heavy load of mecC MRSA.

为了证实这一猜想，拉森和他的同事对来自欧洲和新西兰的刺猬进行了筛查，发现斯堪的纳维亚和英国的刺猬携带大量的mecC MRSA。

And they also found that the fungus carried by those hedgehogs had all the genes⁶ they needed to produce penicillin.

他们还发现，这些刺猬身上的真菌具备一切需要用来制造青霉素的基因。

We then went on and sequenced and analyzed⁷ the genomes of around one thousand mecC MRSA isolates⁸, which showed that they first appeared in hedgehogs in the early 1800s long before we started to use antibiotics⁹ in human and veterinary medicine.

然后，我们继续对大约1000株mecC MRSA分离株的基因组进行测序和分析。结果表明，早在我们开始在人类和兽医中使用抗生素之前，它们就在19世纪初首次出现在刺猬体内。

Now, that doesn’t mean that we should feel free to use antibiotics all over the place, because it’s not our fault, it’s the hedgehogs’.

现在，虽说这不是我们的错，而是刺猬的错，却并不表明我们可以随意使用抗生素。

Because if having antibiotics around encourages bacteria to evolve resistance, taking antibiotics away robs them of their superpower and leaves them a little bit weaker than their non-resistant¹⁰ kin⁴.

因为如果周围有抗生素会促使细菌进化出抗药性，那么撤走抗生素就会剥夺它们的超能力, 这会让让它们变弱，逊于自己的非抗性同类。

It is often very energy consuming to produce the enzymes¹¹ that inactivate¹² the antibiotics.

生产使抗生素失活的酶通常是非常耗能的。

This means that resistant bacteria will often be outcompeted by susceptible¹³ bacteria in periods when they are not exposed to antibiotics.

这意味着，在不接触抗生素的时期，耐药细菌往往会被易感菌击败。

So if we really want to show MRSA no mercy, we should keep the methicillin to a minimum.

因此，如果我们真的想对MRSA痛下杀手，我们应该将甲氧西林的用量保持在最低水平。

And maybe keep at least a quills-length away from Scandinavian hedgehogs.

也许至少与斯堪的纳维亚的刺猬保持一根刺的距离。

For Scientific American’s 60-Second Science, I’m Karen Hopkin.

谢谢大家收听科学美国人——60秒科学。我是凯伦·霍普金。