Zoologist Ross Piper looks at the potential of insects in pharmaceutical research

动物学家罗斯·派珀探讨了昆虫在药物研究中的潜力。

A    More drugs than you might think are derived from, or inspired by, compounds found in living things. Looking to nature for the soothing and curing of our ailments is nothing new - we have been doing it for tens of thousands of years. You only have to look at other primates - such as the capuchin monkeys who rub themselves with toxin-oozing millipedes to deter mosquitoes, or the chimpanzees who use noxious forest plants to rid themselves of intestinal parasites - to realise that our ancient ancestors too probably had a basic grasp of medicine.

A    取自生物的药物或是受到生物内化合物的启发研制出的药物，其数量可能超乎你的想象。寻求大自然的抚慰并治愈我们的疾病并不是什么新鲜事我们已经这样做了成千上万年了。你只需要看看其他的灵长类动物--比如卷尾猴用有毒的千足虫擦拭身体来驱除蚊子，而黑猩猩用有毒的森林植物清除自己肠道内的寄生虫--这让我们意识到古老的祖先也可能掌握一些基本的医药知识。

B    Pharmaceutical science and chemistry built on these ancient foundations and perfected the extraction, characterisation, modification and testing of these natural products. Then, for a while, modern pharmaceutical science moved its focus away from nature and into the laboratory, designing chemical compounds from scratch. The main cause of this shift is that although there are plenty of promising chemical compounds in nature, finding them is far from easy. Securing sufficient numbers of the organism in question, isolating and characterising the compounds of interest, and producing large quantities of these compounds are all significant hurdles.

B    药物科学和药物化学建立在这些古老的基础上并完善了这些天然产物的提取、鉴定、改良和测试。在后来的一段时间内，现代药学的研究重点从自然转向实验室，从头开始设计化合物。造成这种转变的主要原因是，尽管自然界中存在大量有使用前景的化合物，但要找到它们绝非易事。要获得大量还在讨论中的生物体、分离并鉴定出相关的化合物，并大量生产这些化合物都会遇到重重阻碍。

C    Laboratory-based drug discovery has achieved varying levels of success, something which has now prompted the development of new approaches focusing once again on natural products. With the ability to mine genomes for useful compounds, it is now evident that we have barely scratched the surface of nature's molecular diversity. This realisation, together with several looming health crises, such as antibiotic resistance, has put bioprospecting - the search for useful compounds in nature - firmly back on the map.

C    以实验室为基础的药物发现已经取得了不同程度的成功，这更促使人们开发出新的方法，再次把重点放在自然界的产物上。有了从基因组中提出有用化合物的能力，现在很明显，我们仅仅触及了自然界分子多样性的表层。有了这样的认识，加上抗生素耐药性等几个迫在眉睫的健康危机，使生物勘探--在自然界中寻找有用的化合物--重新回到了人们的视野。

D    Insects are the undisputed masters of the terrestrial domain, where they occupy every possible niche. Consequently, they have a bewildering array of interactions with other organisms, something which has driven the evolution of an enormous range of very interesting compounds for defensive and offensive purposes. Their remarkable diversity exceeds that of every other group of animals on the planet combined. Yet even though insects are far and away the most diverse animals in existence, their potential as sources of therapeutic compounds is yet to be realised.

D    昆虫是陆地领域无可争议的主导者，它们占据着每一处可能的地方。因此，它们与其他生物之间存在着一系列令人困惑的相互作用，而这些相互作用又产生了大量非常有趣的化合物的进化，它们有的具有防御作用，有的具有进攻作用。它们显著的多样性超过了地球上其他所有生物种群的总和。然而，即使昆虫无疑是现存最多样化的种群，但将它们作为治疗性化合物来源的潜力仍有待实现。

E    From the tiny proportion of insects that have been investigated, several promising compounds have been identified. For example, alloferon, an antimicrobial compound produced by blow fly larvae, is used as an antiviral and antitumor agent in South Korea and Russia. The larvae of a few other insect species are being investigated for the potent antimicrobial compounds they produce. Meanwhile, a compound from the venom of the wasp Polybia paulista has potential in cancer treatment.

E    从已经被研究的少部分的昆虫中，人们已经确定了一些有使用前景的化合物。例如，由丽蝇幼虫产生的抗菌剂化合物alloferon在韩国和俄罗斯被用作抗病毒和抗肿瘤的药物。还有其他几种昆虫的幼虫也正在接受研究，看它们是否能产生有效的抗菌化合物。同时，从蜂毒中提取的化合物Polybia paulista可能可以治疗癌症。

F    Why is it that insects have received relatively little attention in bioprospecting? Firstly, there are so many insects that, without some manner of targeted approach, investigating this huge variety of species is a daunting task. Secondly, insects are generally very small, and the glands inside them that secrete potentially useful compounds are smaller still. This can make it difficult to obtain sufficient quantities of the compound for subsequent testing. Thirdly, although we consider insects to be everywhere, the reality of this ubiquity is vast numbers of a few extremely common species. Many insect species are infrequently encountered and very difficult to rear in captivity, which, again, can leave us with insufficient material to work with.

F    为什么昆虫在生物勘探中受到的关注相对较少?首先，昆虫种类如此之多，如果不采取一些有针对性的方法，研究这些种类繁多的物种是一项艰巨的任务。第二，昆虫的体型通常很小，它们体内分泌潜在有用化合物的腺体更小。这样就很难取得足够数量的化合物用于后续测试。第三，尽管我们认为昆虫无处不在，但事实是，这些普遍存在的是极为常见的物种。许多昆虫种类很少遇到，而且在圈养状态下很难培养，这又会使我们在研究中缺乏足够的材料。

G    My colleagues and I at Aberystwyth University in the UK have developed an approach in which we use our knowledge of ecology as a guide to target our efforts. The creatures that particularly interest us are the many insects that secrete powerful poison for subduing prey and keeping it fresh for future consumption. There are even more insects that are masters of exploiting filthy habitats, such as faeces and carcasses, where they are regularly challenged by thousands of micro-organisms. These insects have many antimicrobial compounds for dealing with pathogenic bacteria and fungi, suggesting that there is certainly potential to find many compounds that can serve as or inspire new antibiotics.

G    我和我在英国阿伯里斯特威斯大学的同事们研发出了一种方法，我们用生态学的知识作为研究的指导。我们尤其感兴趣的生物是能够分泌强大的毒液来制服猎物的那些昆虫，并能保持猎物的新鲜以供未来食用。还有更多的昆虫擅长利用肮脏的栖息地，比如粪便和尸体，在那里它们通常会受到成千上万的微生物的挑战。这些昆虫有许多抗菌化合物，可以用来对付致病菌和真菌，这表明，我们肯定有潜力找到多种可以直接能用或激发新的抗生素的化合物。

H    Although natural history knowledge points us in the right direction, it doesn't solve the problems associated with obtaining useful compounds from insects. Fortunately, it is now possible to snip out the stretches of the insect's DNA that carry the codes for the interesting compounds and insert them into cell lines that allow larger quantities to be produced. And although the road from isolating and characterising compounds with desirable qualities to developing a commercial product is very long and full of pitfalls, the variety of successful animal-derived pharmaceuticals on the market demonstrates there is a precedent here that is worth exploring.

H    虽然自然历史知识为我们指引了正确的方向，但它并未解决从昆虫身上获得有用化合物这类问题。幸运的是，现在可以提炼出昆虫携带的有用化合物的DNA编码，并将它们射入到允许大量生长的细胞系。尽管从分离和鉴定理想的化合物到开发商业产品的道路漫长且充满荆棘，但市场上各种成功的动物源性药物表明，这是一个值得探索的领域。

I    With every bit of wilderness that disappears, we deprive ourselves of potential medicines. As much as I'd love to help develop a groundbreaking insect-derived medicine, my main motivation for looking at insects in this way is conservation. I sincerely believe that all species, however small and seemingly insignificant, have a right to exist for their own sake. If we can shine a light on the darker recesses of nature's medicine cabinet, exploring the useful chemistry of the most diverse animals on the planet, I believe we can make people think differently about the value of nature.

I    每一片原野的消失意味着我们剥夺了潜在的药物。尽管我很想帮忙开发一种开创性的昆虫衍生药物，但我以这种方式对待昆虫的主要动机是为了保护它们。我真诚地相信，所有物种，无论多么微小又看似无关紧要，都有权生存下去。如果我们能够照亮大自然医药箱的黑暗角落，探索地球上最多样化的动物的有用化学物质，我相信我们就可以让人们对大自然的价值有不同的看法。