2021年经济学人 蜜蜂是最先发明疫苗的物种(1)

Entomology

昆虫学

Swarm¹ immunity²

蜂群免疫

Honeybees run vaccination³ programmes, too

蜜蜂也有疫苗接种项目

An old saw has it that there is nothing new under the sun. But it may still come as a surprise that human beings are not alone in having invented vaccination. Work just published in the Journal of Experimental Biology by Gyan Harwood of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, confirms that honeybees got there first. It also suggests that they run what look like the equivalent of prime-boost childhood vaccination programmes.

有句古谚说，太阳底下无新事。然而，“人类并不是唯一发明疫苗的物种”这一点仍让人震惊。来自伊利诺伊大学厄巴纳-香槟分校的吉安·哈伍德在《实验生物学杂志》上发表的研究证实，蜜蜂是最先发明疫苗的物种。研究还表明，他们在实施类似于加强儿童免疫的疫苗接种计划。

Being gregarious⁴, honeybees are at constant risk of diseases sweeping⁵ through their hives. Most animals which live in crowded conditions have particularly robust⁶ immune systems, so it long puzzled entomologists that honeybees do not. Indeed, they actually possess fewer immune-related genes⁷ than most solitary⁸ bees.

由于是群居，所以蜜蜂经常面临疾病横扫蜂巢的风险。大多数生活在拥挤环境中的动物都有特别强大的免疫系统，而蜜蜂却没有，这一问题一直困扰着昆虫学家。事实上，它们的免疫相关基因比大多数独居的蜜蜂都要少。

Part of the answer, discovered in 2015, is that queen bees vaccinate⁹ their eggs by transferring into them, before they are laid, fragments of proteins from diseasecausing pathogens. These act as antigens which trigger the development of a protective immune response in the developing young. But that observation raises the question of how the queen receives her antigen supply in the first place, for she subsists¹⁰ purely¹¹ on royal jelly, a substance secreted¹² by worker bees which are at the stage of their lives (which precedes the period that they spend flying around foraging¹³ for nectar and pollen) when they act as nurses to larvae¹⁴. Dr Harwood therefore wondered if the nurses were incorporating into the royal jelly they were producing, fragments from pathogens they had consumed while eating the victuals¹⁵ brought to the hive by the foragers.

2015年给出的部分答案是，蜂王在产卵前将致病病原体的蛋白质片段转移到卵中，从而为卵接种疫苗。这些抗体作为抗原，会在发育中的年轻蜜蜂中引发保护性免疫反应。但这一观察结果有一个问题：首先，蚁后是如何获得抗原的，因为蚁后只靠蜂王浆生存，蜂王浆是工蜂处于哺育幼蜂的生命阶段时（在它们四处飞行寻找花蜜和花粉之前）分泌的一种物质。于是哈伍德博士想，当这些保育蜂在吃觅食者带到蜂巢的食物时，它们是否将自己生产的蜂王浆和食用的病原体碎片融合到了一起。

To test this idea, he teamed up with a group at the University of Helsinki, in Finland, led by Heli Salmela. Together, they collected about 150 nurse bees and divided them among six queenless mini hives equipped with broods of larvae to look after. Instead of nectar, they fed the nurses on sugar-water, and for three of the hives they laced this syrup¹⁶ with Paenibacillus larvae, a bacterium¹⁷ that causes a hive-killing disease called American foulbrood.

为了验证这个想法，他和芬兰赫尔辛基大学的海利·萨尔梅拉领导的团队进行了合作。他们一起收集了大约150只保育蜂，并将它们分到了6个没有蜂后的迷你蜂巢里，里面有一窝需要照顾的幼蜂。他们用糖水代替花蜜喂养这些保育蜂，并在其中三个蜂巢的糖水中加入了幼虫芽孢杆菌，这种细菌会导致一种能够杀死蜂巢的疾病，叫做美洲幼虫病。

1 swarm   

n.(昆虫)等一大群；vi.成群飞舞；蜂拥而入

参考例句：

• There is a swarm of bees in the tree.这树上有一窝蜜蜂。
• A swarm of ants are moving busily.一群蚂蚁正在忙碌地搬家。

2 immunity   

n.优惠；免除；豁免，豁免权

参考例句：

• The law gives public schools immunity from taxation.法律免除公立学校的纳税义务。
• He claims diplomatic immunity to avoid being arrested.他要求外交豁免以便避免被捕。

3 vaccination   

n.接种疫苗，种痘

参考例句：

• Vaccination is a preventive against smallpox.种痘是预防天花的方法。
• Doctors suggest getting a tetanus vaccination every ten years.医生建议每十年注射一次破伤风疫苗。

4 gregarious   

adj.群居的，喜好群居的

参考例句：

• These animals are highly gregarious.这些动物非常喜欢群居。
• They are gregarious birds and feed in flocks.它们是群居鸟类，会集群觅食。

5 sweeping   

adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的

参考例句：

• The citizens voted for sweeping reforms.公民投票支持全面的改革。
• Can you hear the wind sweeping through the branches?你能听到风掠过树枝的声音吗？

6 robust   

adj.强壮的，强健的，粗野的，需要体力的，浓的

参考例句：

• She is too tall and robust.她个子太高，身体太壮。
• China wants to keep growth robust to reduce poverty and avoid job losses,AP commented.美联社评论道，中国希望保持经济强势增长，以减少贫困和失业状况。

7 genes   

n.基因( gene的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• You have good genes from your parents, so you should live a long time. 你从父母那儿获得优良的基因，所以能够活得很长。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Differences will help to reveal the functions of the genes. 它们间的差异将会帮助我们揭开基因多种功能。 来自英汉非文学 - 生命科学 - 生物技术的世纪

8 solitary   

adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士

参考例句：

• I am rather fond of a solitary stroll in the country.我颇喜欢在乡间独自徜徉。
• The castle rises in solitary splendour on the fringe of the desert.这座城堡巍然耸立在沙漠的边际，显得十分壮美。

9 vaccinate   

vt.给…接种疫苗；种牛痘

参考例句：

• Local health officials then can plan the best times to vaccinate people.这样，当地的卫生官员就可以安排最佳时间给人们接种疫苗。
• Doctors vaccinate us so that we do not catch smallpox.医生给我们打预防针使我们不会得天花。

10 subsists   

v.（靠很少的钱或食物）维持生活，生存下去( subsist的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• This plant subsists in water holes only during the rainy season. 这种植物只有雨季在水坑里出现。 来自辞典例句
• The hinge is that the enterprise subsists on suiting the development of data communication. 适应数据通信的发展是通信企业生存的关键。 来自互联网

11 purely   

adv.纯粹地，完全地

参考例句：

• I helped him purely and simply out of friendship.我帮他纯粹是出于友情。
• This disproves the theory that children are purely imitative.这证明认为儿童只会单纯地模仿的理论是站不住脚的。

12 secreted   

v.（尤指动物或植物器官）分泌( secrete的过去式和过去分词 )；隐匿，隐藏

参考例句：

• Insulin is secreted by the pancreas. 胰岛素是胰腺分泌的。
• He secreted his winnings in a drawer. 他把赢来的钱藏在抽届里。 来自《简明英汉词典》

13 foraging   

v.搜寻（食物），尤指动物觅（食）( forage的现在分词 )；（尤指用手）搜寻（东西）

参考例句：

• They eke out a precarious existence foraging in rubbish dumps. 他们靠在垃圾场捡垃圾维持着朝不保夕的生活。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The campers went foraging for wood to make a fire. 露营者去搜寻柴木点火。 来自辞典例句

14 larvae   

n.幼虫

参考例句：

• Larvae are parasitic on sheep.幼虫寄生在绵羊的身上。
• The larvae prey upon small aphids.这种幼虫以小蚜虫为食。

15 victuals   

n.食物；食品

参考例句：

• A plateful of coarse broken victuals was set before him.一盘粗劣的剩余饭食放到了他的面前。
• There are no more victuals for the pig.猪没有吃的啦。

16 syrup   

n.糖浆，糖水

参考例句：

• I skimmed the foam from the boiling syrup.我撇去了煮沸糖浆上的泡沫。
• Tinned fruit usually has a lot of syrup with it.罐头水果通常都有许多糖浆。

17 bacterium   

n.(pl.)bacteria 细菌

参考例句：

• The bacterium possibly goes in the human body by the mouth.细菌可能通过口进入人体。
• A bacterium is identified as the cause for his duodenal ulcer.一种细菌被断定为造成他十二指肠溃疡的根源。