Gut Microbes Lessen Mice Malarial Malaise
肠道细菌减轻小鼠的疟疾痛苦

Mice with the right mix of microbes were spared the worst of a malaria infection, possibly via some sort of "booster effect" on the immune system.
有特定的细菌菌群的小鼠能够幸免于疟疾感染的痛苦，这种作用可能是通过微生物对免疫系统的某种“增强效应”。

撰文/播音 克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔 (Christopher Intagliata)
翻译 Meatle
审校 邰伦玥

Malaria infection begins when a mosquito injects the Plasmodium parasite into the blood. But getting sick is not a certain outcome. "The vast majority of people really only develop either mild malaria or even asymptomatic infections." Nathan Schmidt, a cellular immunologist at the University of Louisville. "It's a very small subset of the hundreds of millions of cases that progress to severe malaria."
疟疾感染始于蚊子将疟原虫注入动物体内。但疟疾感染不一定会产生病理反应。“绝大多数感染了疟原虫的人仅会显露出轻度的疟疾反应，甚至没有感染症状。”路易斯维尔大学的细胞免疫学家，南森·斯密特(Nathan Schmidt)说。“而数以亿计的病例中，有少数病例出现了强烈的疟疾症状。“

Some of the variation in illness severity is genetic. Or whether the patient is partially immune, thanks to past exposures. But Schmidt and his colleagues have found another factor that could influence the disease: the host's microbiome.
这些症状差异的来源之一是基因的差异。或是由于过去感染的关系，病人对疟疾部分免疫。然而斯密特和他的同僚发现了另一个影响该疾病的因素：病人的肠道微生物群。

The first clue came during an experiment in lab mice: even though the mice were almost identical genetically, mice that had been bought from different vendors showed variability in their response to infection by the malaria parasite. Turns out, the mice had different microbiomes.
初步的证据源自小白鼠实验：尽管小鼠的基因是近乎一致的，但它们对于疟疾感染的症状仍然出现了差异，因此有其他因素导致了这种状况的出现。结果发现，这些症状不同的小鼠拥有不同的微生物群。

So the researchers did more tests—they transplanted the gut bugs of both the resistant and the susceptible animals into other mice that had no gut bacteria. And again, mice that now had the resistant microbial mix were spared the worst of a malaria infection—possibly through some sort of 'booster effect' on their immune system thanks to the microbes. The study appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. [Nicolas F. Villarino et al, Composition of the gut microbiota modulates the severity of malaria]
进而，研究人员进行了更多的测试——他们将对疟疾有抵抗力和易受疟疾感染的个体的肠道微生物群移植到没有肠道微生物的小鼠体内。并再次发现那些移植了具有抵抗力的微生物群的小鼠幸免于最恶劣的疟疾感染症状。估计是得益于微生物群对免疫系统的某种“增强效应”。该项研究发表在《美国国家科学院论文集》(Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)上。

As for optimizing our microbiomes? "I think that we're pretty far away from this having any kind of real therapeutic potential for humans." Yogurt alone, for example, did not much help the mice. But if and when we do find the right recipe for the anti-malarial microbiome, the researchers say, it could lessen the parasite's effects. And perhaps save thousands of lives.
将这项发现用于优化我们的微生物群？“我认为我们离将这种技术用于治疗人类还有很远的距离。”例如，酸乳制品对小鼠的作用就相当有限。但如果我们确实到找了对抗疟疾的合适的微生物群配方，研究人员认为，这将会减少这种寄生虫的影响。而这，也会拯救成千上万的人的生命。