2015年诺贝尔生理学或医学奖的启示——土壤微生物分离培养推动了寄生虫病防治

2015 Nobel Prize and Soil Microbiology——Culture-dependent Study Warrants More Attention

1974年日本科学家大村智从土壤中分离到一株链霉菌,并与美国默克(Merck)公司合作,发现了阿维菌素,在治疗盘尾丝虫症(河盲症)和淋巴丝虫病(象皮病)方面取得了重大突破,成为2015年诺贝尔生理学或医学奖获得者之一,表明纯菌株的分离和培养具有极为重要的意义,应在未来土壤微生物研究中得到更多的重视。

In 1974,Satoshi ō mura,a Japanese microbiologist and expert in isolating natural products,isolated new strains of Streptomyces from soil samples. He found that this strain can produce a bioactive compound named Avermectin,which was subsequently chemically modified to a more effective compound called Ivermectin by Williman Campbell from Merck Company. Ivermectine was later tested in humans with parasitic infections and effectively killed parasite larvae,leading to a Nobel Prize in 2015. The rapid advance of new techniques such as single-cell isolation and high-throughput screening may revolutionize culture-dependent study and downstream applications. This will dramatically change the landscape of DNA/RNA-based research of microbial resource on Earth,and soil microbiology represents one of the most important research fields in future.