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【bio-news】争议四起：纳米菌理论能否成立？
纳米菌理论争议四起
Tiny 'living' particles may just be lumps of limestone.
微小的“活”微粒也许仅仅是石灰石做成的金丝雀
Michael Hopkin
They look like tiny bacteria, have been implicated in several diseases and have even been hailed as a completely overlooked branch of the tree of life. But are 'nanobacteria' genuinely alive? New research suggests that the answer is probably no.
他们像是微小的细菌，和几种疾病有牵连，甚至被喻为进化树上被完全忽略的一支。但是'纳米菌'确实真正地存活着？新研究表明答案可能是否定的。
Ever since they were first described in the early 1980s, nanobacteria — which can be just 50 nanometres, or millionths of a millimetre, across — have captured the imagination of everyone from health experts to space biologists. A panel convened in 1998 by the US National Academy of Sciences concluded that the particles are too small to be alive, but that didn't stop people from being fascinated by them, and some companies even say that they can detect nanobacterial infections.
自从20世纪八十年代初首次提出“纳米菌”理论，纳米菌直径可能只有50纳米，或是1毫米的百万份之一。这个概念一经推出就抓获了从健康专家到空间生物学家每一个人的想象力。1998年，由美国国家科学院成员组成的一个小组的研究结论认为这些颗粒太小以至于不能存活。但这并不阻止人们着迷于纳米菌。一些公司甚至声称他们可以检测到纳米菌感染。
But now the nanobacteria theory has taken a blow. New research suggests that, besides being too small to be alive, they may also be made of something not much more complex than simple chalk.
但是现在纳米理论已经遭到了打击。新的研究表明，除了他们太小不能存活，他们也许是由一些比简单的粉笔复杂多的物质组成。
Death knell?
死亡丧钟？
Jan Martel of Taiwan's Chang Gung University and John Young of Rockefeller University in New York created particles that look exactly like nanobacteria by incubating human serum with the chemical ingredients of simple calcium carbonate, or limestone.
台湾长庚大学Jan Martel和纽约洛克菲勒大学John Young创建了看起来和纳米完全一样的粒子，是由人血清和纯碳酸钙（或石灰石）化学成分一起孵化出来的。
The researchers then compared their creations with naturally occurring 'nanobacteria-like particles' from human blood samples. The particles not only looked identical to the limestone mix, they also showed no traces of DNA or RNA. The researchers then blasted the particles with enough radiation to slaughter any bacteria, and found that the particles still looked the same.
研究人员然后将这些创造的粒子和人类血液样本天然形成的纳米菌样粒子进行了比较。这些粒子看上去不仅仅是完全相同的石灰石混合物，他们还显示出没有痕迹的DNA或RNA。研究人员然后用足够的辐射毁掉粒子以杀死所有细菌，发现该粒子看上去仍然一样。
"I am pretty confident this will put an end to the biotic mechanism for nanobacteria," says Young, who reported the research in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 1.
在国家科学院的会议上报道了这一研究的Young 说“对此我相当有信心，这将终止纳米菌生物机制的研究。
But why were some biologists so eager to believe that these were genuine life forms? Because the particles grow in such a life-like way, says Young. They even split in two in a way that resembles dividing bacteria. "They seem to grow, to propagate, and divide — you would swear they are a biological organism — but they're not," he says.
但是为什么一些生物学家急于相信这些粒子都是真正的生命形式？Young说：“认为因为这些粒子的生长方式像生命一样轻。他们甚至一分为二，像是细菌分裂。他们似乎生长、繁殖和分裂。你不得不承认他们是一个生物有机体，但是实际上他们没有。”
What is most intriguing about nanobacteria is that, although they seem to form by a chemical reaction between calcium and carbon dioxide — both of which are found naturally dissolved in blood — they are not simple lumps of chalk. "We believe what we have found is a complex of organic molecules and minerals," Young says.
关于纳米菌什么是最耐人寻味的？虽然他们似乎是由钙离子和二氧化碳（这两者天然溶解在血液中）之间的一个化学反应形成的。Young认为：“他们不是简单的粉笔块。我们相信我们发现的是一个复杂的有机分子和矿物质。”
That means that nanobacteria probably become coated with proteins or other organic molecules, which stop them from growing like a regular, jagged limestone crystal and instead look like round blobs.
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作者:admin@医学,生命科学 2010-11-28 17:11
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