微生物帮助熊准备冬眠
Bear Gut Microbes Help Prep Hibernation
微生物帮助熊准备冬眠
Bears’ gut summer bacteria are more diverse and include species that tend to promote energy storage than are the bacteria that live in them during their hibernation
在夏天，相比冬眠期间，熊的肠胃中的微生物多样性更高，并包含了更多促进能量储备的细菌种群。
撰文/播音 凯伦·霍普金 (Karen Hopkin)
翻译 Meatle
审校 邰伦玥
Does a bear produce feces in the woods? And do enterprising researchers then scoop that poop to analyze its microbial composition? You bet they do! And what they find is that the ursine intestinal microbiome changes dramatically during hibernation, an internal microbial shakeup that could help bears do their big metabolic chill.
熊会在树林中便便么？而敬业的研究人员会收集熊的粪便并分析其中的微生物么？他们还真的这样做了！研究人员发现，在冬眠期间，熊的肠道微生物发生了剧烈的变化，这种微生物混合物减缓了熊的新陈代谢。
Brown bears spend the summer beefing up in preparation for their winter snooze. They eat and eat and they pack on the pounds. Yet despite this seasonal gluttony and weight gain, the bears appear to be immune to developing diabetes or the other metabolic disorders that befall yo-yo dieters of the human variety.
棕熊用整个夏天来养胖自己以准备冬日长睡。它们吃啊吃，胖啊胖。然而，尽管经过了这种季节性的暴饮暴食和体重暴涨，熊并没有像悠悠球节食者（yo-yo dieter, 反复减肥而又反弹的人）那样患上糖尿病或是其他的代谢性疾病。
So researchers theorized that gut bacteria might play a role. To check out that idea, the scientists collected scat from captured wild brown bears both during their season of feasting and during hibernation. And in case you’re wondering, they went in and got the stuff before it even hit the ground. If you get my drift.
因此研究人员认为肠道微生物在这个过程中应该贡献。为了验证这个理论，研究人员收集了暴食与冬眠时自由放养的熊的粪便。或许你纳闷他们怎么采集粪便，他们在粪便碰到地上之前就采集到它们，你明白了么？
An analysis of the excrement showed that bears’ summer bacteria are more diverse and include species that tend to promote energy storage. What’s more, when the researchers stripped mice of their own microbes and gave them the bacteria from bears, the rodents that received the summer sampler got fatter than those with the winter set—evidence that the microbiome is indeed affecting metabolism. The results appear in the journal Cell Reports. [Felix Sommer et al, The Gut Microbiota Modulates Energy Metabolism in the Hibernating Brown Bear Ursus arctos]
一项排泄物的测试表明，熊的夏季细菌种类更为复杂，并包括了那些促进能量贮存的细菌。研究人员进行了实验，清除了小鼠肠道的细菌，并移植了从熊的肠道中采集到的细菌样本。那些获取了夏季样本的小鼠，相对于获取了冬季样本的小鼠增肥得更快。这项证据证明了这些微生物确实会影响新陈代谢。该结论发表在《细胞报道》(Cell Reports)上。[Felix Sommer et al, The Gut Microbiota Modulates Energy Metabolism in the Hibernating Brown Bear Ursus arctos]
The researchers do not yet know whether fiddling with our own gut bacteria could help us shed excess weight. Or whether any such microbial diet plan would necessitate a very long winter’s nap.
研究人员还不知道，改造我们的肠道微生物是否会协助我们减少过多的体重，或者这些微生物是否会使人陷入漫长的冬眠。
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京ICP备11000850号-1
京公网安备11010502039775号 信息网络传播视听节目许可证0111611号
国家科技基础条件平台