巨型恐龍患上了一種至今仍在人類身上可見的痛苦疾病

巨型恐龍患上了一種至今仍在人類身上可見的痛苦疾病

Palaeontologists have dusted off a fossilized dinosaur tail that contains clear evidence of a nasty disease. Remarkably, some 66 million years later, this rare condition can still be found in humans today.

古生物學(xué)家們重拾了恐龍尾巴化石，其中包含了一種可怕疾病的明確證據(jù)。值得注意的是，大約六千六百萬年后，這種罕見的情況仍然可以在今天的人類身上找到。

Tom Hale

The fossilized tail vertebrae once belonged to a young hadrosaur, duck-billed herbivores that lived in large herds across the planet between 80 and 66 million years ago. Although this family of dinosaurs included a diverse range of species, they were generally huge beasts, measuring over 10 meters (32.8 feet) in length and weighing several tons.

尾椎化石曾經(jīng)屬于一只年輕的鴨嘴龍，鴨嘴龍是一種食草動物，在8000萬到6600萬年前，它們在地球上以大群的形式生活。雖然這個恐龍家族包括了各種各樣的物種，但它們通常都是巨大的野獸，身長超過10米(32.8英尺)，體重達幾噸。

After the fossil was unearthed from a prairie in southern Alberta, Canada, a team of researchers at Tel Aviv University (TAU) in Israel noticed that two of the vertebrae segments (image below) contained large cavities. A closer inspection showed that the unusual cavities were very similar to the lesions seen in people suffering from the disease Langerhans cell histiocytosis (LCH).

在加拿大阿爾伯塔省南部的一個大草原上發(fā)現(xiàn)這塊化石后，以色列特拉維夫大學(xué)(TAU)的一組研究人員注意到其中兩塊椎骨(下圖)上有大的空洞。進一步檢查發(fā)現(xiàn)，這些不尋常的蛀牙與朗格漢斯細胞組織細胞增多癥(LCH)患者的病變非常相似。

The circular mark on the center of the vertebra (seen right) could be evidence of a deep lesion caused by LCH. Assaf Ehrenreich, Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University

The study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, marks the first time such a disease has been identified in a dinosaur.

這項發(fā)表在《科學(xué)報告》雜志上的研究，標志著首次在恐龍身上發(fā)現(xiàn)這種疾病。

"We scanned the dinosaur vertebrae and created a computerized 3D reconstruction of the tumor and the blood vessels that fed it. The micro and macro analyses confirmed that it was, in fact, LCH,” lead author Dr Hila May, of the Department of Anatomy and Anthropology at TAU's Sackler Faculty of Medicine, said in a statement.

“我們掃描了恐龍的椎骨，創(chuàng)建了一個計算機三維重建的腫瘤和血管喂養(yǎng)它。微觀和宏觀分析證實，它實際上是LCH。”該研究的第一作者，來自薩克勒醫(yī)學(xué)院解剖學(xué)和人類學(xué)的希拉·梅博士在一份聲明中說。、

LCH is a form of rare disease (sometimes referred to as cancer) caused by a mutation that leads to Langerhans cells, a type of immune cell that fights infections, growing and multiplying uncontrollably. This can cause the cells to build up, resulting in deep tissue damage or lesions in the bone. As you can imagine, it can be an extremely painful disease. It’s most often found in young children and most patients manage to survive.

LCH是一種罕見的疾病(有時被稱為癌癥)，它是由一種突變導(dǎo)致朗格漢斯細胞(一種抗感染的免疫細胞)不受控制地生長和增殖而引起的。這可能導(dǎo)致細胞堆積，導(dǎo)致深層組織損傷或骨骼損傷。你可以想象，這是一種非常痛苦的疾病。它最常見于兒童和大多數(shù)設(shè)法生存的患者身上。

It’s typically associated with humans, but LCH has been documented in a few other animals, such as tigers and a tree shrew. However, as mentioned, it’s never been seen in an extinct animal.

它通常與人類有關(guān)，但也有文獻記載在其他一些動物中，如老虎和樹鼩。然而，如前所述，在滅絕的動物中從未見過。

Diseases in dinosaurs are generally hard to diagnose, although it’s not totally unheard of. In 2016, scientists found the first case of septic arthritis in a hadrosaur fossil, an inflammation of the joints caused by a bacterial infection within bone cartilage. Equally, it’s well-established that dinosaurs were affected by cancer too. Using new tools and techniques, it’s hoped we can diagnose more dinosaur diseases, which could also shed some light on human diseases and their origins.

恐龍身上的疾病通常很難診斷，但也不是完全沒有聽說過。2016年，科學(xué)家們在鴨嘴龍化石中發(fā)現(xiàn)了首例化膿性關(guān)節(jié)炎，這是一種關(guān)節(jié)炎癥，由骨頭軟骨內(nèi)的細菌感染引起。同樣，恐龍也受到了癌癥的影響，這一點已得到證實。利用新的工具和技術(shù)，我們希望能夠診斷出更多的恐龍疾病，這也可以幫助我們了解人類疾病及其起源。

"These kinds of studies... make an important and interesting contribution to evolutionary medicine, a relatively new field of research that investigates the development and behavior of diseases over time," noted Professor Israel Hershkovitz of TAU's Department of Anatomy and Anthropology and Dan David Center for Human Evolution and Biohistory Research.

“這類研究……對進化醫(yī)學(xué)做出了重要而有趣的貢獻，這是一個相對較新的研究領(lǐng)域，研究疾病隨著時間的推移的發(fā)展和行為。”著名的以色列·赫什科維茨教授指出，他是來自于TAU大學(xué)的解剖學(xué)和人類學(xué)以及丹·大衛(wèi)人類進化和生物歷史研究中心的教授。

"We are trying to understand why certain diseases survive evolution with an eye to deciphering what causes them in order to develop new and effective ways of treating them."

“我們正試圖理解為什么某些疾病在進化中幸存下來，并試圖找出導(dǎo)致它們的原因，以便開發(fā)出新的有效的治療方法。”