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(单词翻译:双击或拖选)
These days, antibiotics1 are no silver bullet. In fact, if you get them in the hospital, you may end up with an additional infection. Like the bug2 Clostridium difficile, or C. diff—which infects more than 300,000 Americans a year and kills some 14,000. C. diff flourishes in the post-antibiotic, microbe-free landscape of your gut3. But there is a way to stop it—a fecal transplant. That cocktail4 of microbes from a healthy person's gut can rein5 in a C. diff outbreak. The question is not: Eewww? It’s: What are the transplant's active ingredients?
Well, one of them appears to be a bacterium6 called Clostridium scindens. Because in past studies, people and mice that harbored C. scindens were protected against a full-blown C. diff infection. So researchers dosed mice with the good guy, C. scindens, after a bout7 of antibiotics. And the treatment did indeed ward8 off C. diff, compared to a cocktail of other microbes, or nothing at all.
C. scindens makes a living by breaking down bile, the researchers say, and it's those secondary products that seem to inhibit9 C. diff. The findings are in the journal Nature.
This work could lead to more targeted probiotic treatments. But study author Eric Pamer of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center says it's worth remembering that when it comes to microbes, the sum is often greater than its parts. "In some ways I would say this is far more complex than an orchestra, in that there are many more interdependencies, and many of which we just don't understand yet, but that are starting to be illuminated10 by ongoing11 work." Now, at least, we know one of the featured performers.
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1 antibiotics | |
n.(用作复数)抗生素;(用作单数)抗生物质的研究;抗生素,抗菌素( antibiotic的名词复数 ) | |
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2 bug | |
n.虫子;故障;窃听器;vt.纠缠;装窃听器 | |
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3 gut | |
n.[pl.]胆量;内脏;adj.本能的;vt.取出内脏 | |
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4 cocktail | |
n.鸡尾酒;餐前开胃小吃;混合物 | |
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5 rein | |
n.疆绳,统治,支配;vt.以僵绳控制,统治 | |
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6 bacterium | |
n.(pl.)bacteria 细菌 | |
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7 bout | |
n.侵袭,发作;一次(阵,回);拳击等比赛 | |
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8 ward | |
n.守卫,监护,病房,行政区,由监护人或法院保护的人(尤指儿童);vt.守护,躲开 | |
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9 inhibit | |
vt.阻止,妨碍,抑制 | |
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10 illuminated | |
adj.被照明的;受启迪的 | |
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11 ongoing | |
adj.进行中的,前进的 | |
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