一种有毒的灵长类动物可以帮助我们理解为什么有些人对猫过敏

一种有毒的灵长类动物可以帮助我们理解为什么有些人对猫过敏

Big-eyed and puppy-sized, slow lorises may look just like a cuddly pet but they're actually equipped with a deadly weapon – venom. This toxin makes the slow loris the world’s only venomous primate, and genetic sequencing of its properties is helping researchers to understand why people are allergic to cats.

大眼睛、小狗般大小的懒猴看起来就像可爱的宠物，但它们实际上装备了致命武器——毒液。这种毒素使懒猴成为世界上唯一一种有毒的灵长类动物，对其特性进行基因排序有助于研究人员理解为什么人们会对猫过敏。

Slow lorises have highly specialized brachial glands, a hair-free swelling found on the elbow that produces a strong-smelling fluid. When threatened, a slow loris will raise its arms over its head to bring both glands toward the mouth. A quick lick of the glands turns saliva venomous. The venomous bite from a slow loris will prevent wounds from healing over a long period of time, eventually leading to necrosis, septicemia, lung edema, and cellulitis.

懒猴有高度特化的臂腺，肘部无毛肿胀，产生强烈气味的液体。当受到威胁时，懒猴会将手臂举过头顶，将两个腺体都带到嘴边。快速舔一下唾液腺，唾液就有毒了。被懒猴有毒的咬伤会使伤口在很长一段时间内无法愈合，最终导致坏死、败血症、肺水肿和蜂窝织炎。

Several species of slow lorises are critically endangered. Sainam51/Shutterstock

“Generally slow lorises use their venom to fight with other slow lorises, causing very slow-to-heal wounds. But, when humans are bitten, the victim will display symptoms as if they’re going into allergic shock,” said the University of Queensland’s Associate Professor Bryan Fry in a statement.

“一般来说，慢懒猴会用它们的毒液和其他慢懒猴打斗，导致伤口愈合非常慢。但是，当人类被咬伤时，受害者会表现出过敏休克的症状，”昆士兰大学副教授布莱恩·弗莱在一份声明中说。

Despite their unique defensive tactic, slow lorises (Nycticebus javanicus) remain a “mystery to science”. To fill in some of the gaps, Fry obtained gland secretions from wild slow lories studied at an Indonesian ecological research center over the course of two years. DNA sequencing of the samples revealed a protein found in the brachial gland that presented “remarkable” similarities to proteins present in cat dander. In fact, the two were virtually identical.

尽管它们有独特的防御策略，慢懒猴仍然是“科学之谜”。为了填补一些空白，鱼苗从野生小鳕鱼身上获取腺体分泌物，这些小鳕鱼在印度尼西亚的一个生态研究中心进行了两年的研究。对样本进行DNA测序后发现，在臂腺中发现的一种蛋白质与猫皮屑中的蛋白质有“显著”的相似性。事实上，两者几乎完全相同。

“Cats secrete and coat themselves with this protein, and that’s what you react to if you’re allergic to them,” said Fry, adding that if slow lorises use the protein as a defensive mechanism it may come as no surprise that cats do as well. “The fact that so many people are allergic to cats mightn’t be a coincidence. This may have been evolutionarily selected for in the wild as a defense against predators.”

“猫分泌这种蛋白质并将其覆盖起来，如果你对它们过敏，这就是你的反应。 我一点也不惊讶猫也这么做。“这么多人对猫过敏的事实可能不是巧合。这可能是在进化过程中被挑选出来的，作为对公共关系的防御 ”

Though it is a claim that will require further investigation, the researchers say that it could be that the two animals separately evolved to carry the protein, a process known as convergent evolution whereby two organisms that are not closely related evolve similar traits as an adaptation to their environment. Allergenic proteins likely play a role in the “defensive arsenal” of endangered slow lorises and cats as well as other mammals that exhibit the venomous traits, including platypuses, vampire bats, and water shrews. Together, these defense mechanisms may have evolved over time to “hijack” a victim’s immune system.

虽然研究人员声称,将需要进一步的调查,可能是两只动物分别进化的蛋白质,这一过程称为趋同进化,不密切相关的两种生物进化出相似的特征作为适应他们的环境。致敏蛋白可能在濒危的懒猴、猫以及其他表现出有毒特征的哺乳动物(包括鸭嘴兽、吸血蝙蝠和水鼩)的“防御武器库”中发挥作用。总之，这些防御机制可能随着时间的推移进化成“劫持”受害者的免疫系统。