科学美国人60秒 SSS 口腔愈合速度带来的启示（在线收听）

This is Scientific American — 60-Second Science. I'm Christopher Intagliata.

这里是科学美国人——60秒科学。我是克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔。

When you burn your tongue or cut your cheek, the pain can be intense. But the wound heals pretty quickly, compared to injuries elsewhere.

当你烫伤舌头或割伤面颊时，可能会产生剧烈疼痛。但是与其他部位的伤口相比，这些伤口的愈合速度很快。

That's because all the factors needed to repair a wound are ready to jump into action in oral tissue—and a new study shows that proteins called transcription factors, which control all those healing elements, are present at greater levels in the mouth.

这是因为修复伤口所需的所有因素都已准备好在口腔组织中发挥作用——一项新研究表明，一种名为“转录因子”的蛋白质在口腔中的含量更高，而这种蛋白质控制着所有愈合元素。

You can think of those controlling proteins as theater directors...and the healing factors as the actors, waiting in the wings. "They are ready to go, right on the sidelines, in the oral epithelia, so the director says come ahead and then they are just right onstage." Maria Morasso, a senior investigator at the National Institutes of Health.

你可以把那些控制蛋白质想象成戏剧导演，将愈合因子想象成准备上场的演员。“愈合因子已经为上场做好准备，就在舞台侧边，也就是口腔上皮细胞内等待着，‘导演’让它们上场，它们便冲到了舞台上。”美国国立卫生研究院的高级研究员玛丽亚·莫拉索说到。

She says that's not the case in regular skin tissue. "They have the capability of coming on stage. But they're nowhere close, so you have to go through that step of getting them in the stage to be able to go ahead with that function."

她说，在普通皮肤组织内，情况并非如此。“它们有登上舞台的能力。但是它们离舞台很远，所以你必须经历一个步骤，即让它们登上舞台，以便发挥治疗功效。”

Which delays healing. "It might be difficult to have the play finish on time and according to the script." The study is in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

而这会延误治疗时间。“按照剧本按时演完这部剧，可能很难。”这项研究结果发表在《科学转化医学》期刊上。

Morasso and her colleagues also tested this idea by genetically engineering mice to have more of those factors, the 'directors', in their regular skin tissue—and sure enough, those mice had significantly faster skin wound healing than did control mice.

莫拉索和同事还通过改造老鼠基因测试了这一想法，他们让老鼠的普通皮肤组织中含有更多这类因子，也就是“导演”——果然，这些老鼠皮肤伤口的愈合速度明显快于对照组中的老鼠。

But we can't genetically engineer humans. Instead, Morasso says, if we can learn more about who the healing 'actors' are... and perhaps we can find targeted ways of sending those individuals onstage...to deliver a better performance for patients.

但是我们不能对人类进行基因改造。相反，莫拉索说如果我们能对治愈“演员”的身份有更多了解，也许我们就能找到针对性方法，将那些个体送到舞台上，为病人提供更好的治疗。

Thanks for listening for Scientific American — 60-Second Science. I'm Christopher Intagliata.

谢谢大家收听科学美国人——60秒科学。我是克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔。