新科学家精读|将人的基因移植到猪体内，会发生什么？

　　新科学家精读|将人的基因移植到猪体内，会发生什么？ 本文为大家带来原文精读翻译

　　1. Human genes given to pigs to create rejection-proof skin for transplants将人类基因注入猪体内，培育出抗排斥的移植皮肤 1. THE race to create pigs with organ that are suitable for transplanting into people is hotting up. At least three teams have added human genes to pigs to try to prevent donor organs from being rejected by a recipient’s immune system.

　　培育带有适合移植到人体内的器官的猪的竞赛正在升温。至少有三个研究小组已经在猪身上添加了人类基因，以防止捐赠器官被接受者的免疫系统排斥。

　　2. The research could solve two problems. The first is a shortage of human donor organs. The second is that people who get transplants need to take medicines for the rest of their lives to suppress their immune system and avoid the new organ being rejected.

　　这项研究可以解决两个问题。首先是人体器官捐献的短缺。第二，接受移植的人需要终生服药来抑制免疫系统，以避免对新器官产生排斥反应。

　　3. Different research teams are trying to tackle this by adding human genes to pigs, in an effort to make their organs suitable for humans, and potentially less likely to be rejected by the recipient’s immune system too.

　　不同的研究团队正试图通过在猪身上添加人类基因来解决这一问题，以使猪的器官适合人类，并潜在地降低被接受者免疫系统排斥的可能性。

　　4. Lijin Zou at the First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University in China and his colleagues have created pigs into which they added eight human genes that reduce the chance of a donor organ being rejected, and removed three key pig genes that trigger organ rejection. The group then transplanted skin from these pigs to monkeys. The skin graft survived for up to 25 days without the monkeys needing any immune system suppressing drugs.

　　中国南昌大学第一附属医院的邹立津和他的同事们已经培育出了一批猪，他们在猪身上加入了8个可以降低捐献器官被排斥几率的人类基因，同时还去掉了3个引发器官排斥的关键基因。然后，研究小组将这些猪的皮肤移植到猴子身上。在不给猴子任何免疫系统抑制药物的情况下，这些移植的皮肤存活了25天。

　　5. “So far, it is the best result, at least from the English literature,” says Zou. His team is preparing to start human trials of the pig skin as a temporary cover for extensive burns. These are usually covered with skin from dead human donors while new skin grows. Zou says he would “expect even better” results in humans.

　　“到目前为止，这是最好的结果，至少从英语国家的研究语境中来看是这样，”邹说。他的团队正准备开始猪皮肤的人体试验，将将猪皮肤作为大面积烧伤的临时覆盖。当新皮肤生长时，这些皮肤通常覆盖着死去的人类捐赠者的皮肤。邹说，他对猪皮肤在人类身上移植的结果“期望更高”。

　　6. Interest in this kind of approach has surged in the past decade as advances such as CRISPR gene editing have made it feasible to make extensive changes to the genomes of animals. In December, Luhan Yang at biotech firms Qihan Bio in China and eGenesis in the US reported that her team had created pigs with nine added human genes and dozens of deleted pig genes.

　　过去10年，随着CRISPR基因编辑等技术的进步，对动物基因组进行广泛的改变成为可能，人们对这种方法的研究兴趣大增。去年12月，中国生物科技公司旗汉生物(Qihan Bio)和美国eGenesis公司的杨璐菡称，她的团队培育出了9个添加的人类基因和数十个删除猪基因的猪。

　　7. In addition to deleting the same three genes knocked out by Zou’s team, Yang’s team alsoinactivated dozens of pig viral genes known as porcine endogenous retroviruses, or PERVs.

　　除了删除邹的团队删除的三个基因外，杨的团队使几十个猪病毒基因失去活性，这些基因被称为猪内源性逆转录病毒，或PERVs。

　　8. “It is a major technological achievement,” says David Cooper of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, a former transplant surgeon who works on transplanting pig organs. But regulators will want to know whether all of these genetic changes are necessary, he says.

　　“这是一项重大的技术成就，”伯明翰阿拉巴马大学的David Cooper说，他以前是一名移植外科医生，现在主要研究猪器官的移植。但他表示，监管机构想知道的是，所有这些基因变化是否都是必要的。

　　9. Cooper is working with US biotech company Revivicor, which has added six human genes to pigs, as well as deleting the same three pig genes as the other teams. “I believe that any of these pigs will be suitable for a clinical trial [in humans], but we have to persuade the regulatory authorities first,” he says.

　　库珀正在与美国生物技术公司Revivicor合作，该公司已经在猪身上添加了6个人类基因，和其他团队一样，删除了3个猪基因。他表示:“我相信，这些猪(器官)都适合在人类身上进行临床试验，但我们必须首先说服监管机构。”

　　10. If PERVs start infecting human cells after a transplant, there is a risk they might cause cancer years later, says John Coffin at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston. But this is still better than the outcomes if people don’t get a transplant, he says.

　　波士顿塔夫茨大学医学院的约翰·科芬(John Coffin)说，如果PERVs在移植后开始感染人类细胞，那么多年后它们可能会引发癌症。但他说，这仍然比不进行移植的结果好。