Tougher than any ?bre made by humans and extraordinarily good at transmitting vibrations to the predators that weave it, spider silk has been a source of inspiration for the development of everything from sca?olding for regenerating bones to bulletproof vests, remote sensors and noise reducers.

蜘蛛絲比任何人造纖維都更加強(qiáng)韌，并能很好地將振動(dòng)傳遞給織網(wǎng)的捕食者。其成為了許多事物發(fā)展的靈感來(lái)源：從再生骨頭的支架到防彈背心、遙感器和降噪設(shè)備。

Yet one of its most remarkable attributes, its resistance to decay, has received little attention. Some researchers speculate that spider silk keeps hungry bacteria at bay by being laced with antibiotics.

然而蜘蛛絲最奇特的特征之一——抗腐蝕，卻未被重視。一些研究人士推測(cè)饑餓的細(xì)菌不腐蝕蜘蛛絲是因?yàn)槠渲泻锌股亍?/b>

But work by Wang Pi-Han and Tso I-Min at Tunghai University, in Taiwan, published in the Journal of Experimental Biology, suggests this is not the case.

但臺(tái)灣東海大學(xué)的汪碧涵和卓逸民發(fā)表于《實(shí)驗(yàn)生物學(xué)期刊》上的文章表明事實(shí)并非如此。

Rather, silk manages to avoid being eaten by locking the nutrients it contains behind an impenetrable barrier. Spider silk is made of proteins that ought to be attractive to microbes.

相反，蜘蛛絲將所含營(yíng)養(yǎng)鎖在無(wú)法穿透的屏障內(nèi)，以此避免被細(xì)菌腐蝕。蜘蛛絲是由微生物喜愛的蛋白質(zhì)構(gòu)成的。
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Moreover, because webs are often built in environments, like forests and bogs, that are rife with these bugs, there should be ample opportunities for bacteria to settle on the strands and feast. Remarkably, This does not seem to happen.

另外，因?yàn)橹┲刖W(wǎng)常常生長(zhǎng)于森林沼澤這樣充滿蟲子的環(huán)境，所以細(xì)菌有充足的機(jī)會(huì)棲居其上、盡情飽餐。令人驚異的是，這一切似乎并未發(fā)生。

Dr Wang and Dr Tso were curious about how spiders manage this. They began their investigation by putting bacteria and spider silks together in laboratory conditions perfect for bacterial growth. They worked with silk strands collected from three species of spider that build their webs in di?erent environments, and set these down on nutrient-rich plates. Each plate had one of four bacterial species growing on it.

這是如何實(shí)現(xiàn)的？王博士和陶博士感到十分好奇。他們對(duì)此展開了研究，將細(xì)菌和蜘蛛絲放在一起，置于適宜細(xì)菌生長(zhǎng)的實(shí)驗(yàn)室條件下。從在不同環(huán)境中織網(wǎng)的三種蜘蛛處收集了蜘蛛絲，將它們放進(jìn)富含營(yíng)養(yǎng)的培養(yǎng)皿中。共四種細(xì)菌，每個(gè)培養(yǎng)皿中都有一種細(xì)菌在蜘蛛絲上生長(zhǎng)。

The team then used microscopes to monitor the behaviour of the bacteria over the course of 24 hours. After repeating the experiment three times, they found that the bacteria never fed on the silks.

之后這個(gè)團(tuán)隊(duì)用顯微鏡觀察24小時(shí)內(nèi)細(xì)菌的行為。在重復(fù)該實(shí)驗(yàn)三次之后，它們發(fā)現(xiàn)細(xì)菌從未腐蝕蜘蛛絲。

They also found, however, that the strands were not immune to having bacteria grow over and around them—suggesting that those strands were not laced with antibiotics.

然而，它們也發(fā)現(xiàn)細(xì)菌在蜘蛛絲上和其周圍得以生長(zhǎng)，表明蜘蛛絲內(nèi)并無(wú)抗生素。

The two researchers then tried growing their bacteria directly on silk strands, by providing them with a range of nutrient supplements.

其后，兩位研究員為蜘蛛絲提供了一些營(yíng)養(yǎng)補(bǔ)充劑，嘗試著直接讓細(xì)菌生長(zhǎng)在蜘蛛絲上。

Only one of these supplements, nitrogen, encouraged consumption of the silk.

只有一種補(bǔ)充劑——氮——讓細(xì)菌以蜘蛛絲為食。

When the strands were lathered in a nitrogen-rich solution, bacteria ate them. Without nitrogen, they were held at bay.

當(dāng)蜘蛛絲被涂上富含氮的溶液時(shí)，細(xì)菌便以蜘蛛絲為食。如果沒有氮，細(xì)菌就不吃。

This is odd, because proteins (of which silk is made) are, themselves, rich in nitrogen. That led Dr Wang and Dr Tso to conclude that the antibacterial properties of spider silk are caused not by any sort of antibiotic but, rather, the structure of the silk itself.

這很奇怪。因?yàn)闃?gòu)成蜘蛛絲的蛋白質(zhì)自身就富含氮。王博士和陶博士于是得出結(jié)論，蜘蛛絲的抗菌特性并不是因?yàn)槠渲泻锌股兀怯捎谥┲虢z自身的結(jié)構(gòu)。

Natural sextion, it seems, has driven spider silk to store the proteins it is composed of behind a layer made impenetrable by its physical rather than its chemical structure.

自然選擇似乎驅(qū)使蜘蛛絲將構(gòu)成自身的蛋白質(zhì)儲(chǔ)存于一個(gè)表層之后，因其物理結(jié)構(gòu)而非化學(xué)結(jié)構(gòu)而無(wú)法穿透。

What, exactly, that structure is the two researchers have yet to determine. Once it has been elucidated, though, the discovery should pave the way for artificial antibacterial materials that do not use antibiotics to keep the bugs away.

這一結(jié)構(gòu)具體是什么，兩位研究人員還沒有定論。但是，一旦將其闡明，這一發(fā)現(xiàn)將會(huì)為人造抗菌物質(zhì)鋪平道路，不必使用抗生素就可以使細(xì)菌遠(yuǎn)離。