科学家在人身上发现了新器官

听说过interstitium（刚发表，没有官方名称）吗?

No? That's OK, you're not alone – scientists hadn't either. Until recently.

没有?没关系，你不是一个人。科学家也是最近才发明的这个词。

And, hey, guess what – you've got one! The interstitium is your newest organ.

但你猜怎么着，你也有这玩意儿——根据最近发表的一项研究，它是科学家最新发现的人体器官。

Scientists identified it for the first time because they are better able to observe living tissues at a microscopic scale, according to a recent study published inScientific Reports.

如今，科学家能够在微观尺度上更好地观察活体组织，所以首次发现了这个器官。

Scientists had long believed that connective tissue surrounding our organs was a thick, compact layer. That's what they saw when they looked at it in the lab, outside the body, at least.

以前，科学家一直认为，包围人体器官的结缔组织是厚实的、紧密的。至少，当他们将结缔组织取出体外、在实验室里仔细观察时，看到的是上述现象。

But in a routine endoscopy (exploration of the gastrointestinal tract), a micro camera revealed something unexpected.

然而，在一次常规胃肠道内镜检查中，医生透过显微摄像头，发现了出乎意料的事情。

When observed in a living body, the connective tissue turned out to be "an open, fluid-filled space supported by a lattice made of thick collagen bundles," pathologist and study author Neil Theise told ResearchGate.

研究作者、病理学家Neil Theise表示：原来，直接观察活体时，结缔组织是“充满液体的开放空间，由厚胶原纤维束构成的格架所支撑”。

This network of channels is present throughout the body and works as a soft, elastic cushion, protecting the organs from external shocks as the body moves.

这个通道网络遍布全身。作为柔软有弹性的缓冲物，它能够保护器官在身体活动时免遭外部冲击。

Theise suspects the sampling procedure used to make slides, previously the only way for scientists to inspect the tissue in detail, did change the specimens' shape.

以往，科学家只能通过制作载片，在显微镜下仔细观察结缔组织。

"Just taking a bite of tissue from this space allows the fluid in the space to drain and the supporting collagen bundles to collapse like the floors of a collapsing building," he said.

Theise推测，取样过程改变了样本形态——提取少量组织会使其中的液体流干，使起支撑作用的胶原纤维束崩塌(如同高楼坍塌)。

Researchers could see tiny cracks in the tissue under the microscope, but they thought those cracks happened when the tissue was pulled too hard as it was loaded onto slides.

在显微镜下，研究人员能够看到结缔组织里的微小裂缝。但他们以为，裂缝是制作载片时结缔组织受到过分牵扯而产生的。

"But these were not artifacts," Theise said.

其实，裂缝并非人为造成，

"These were the remnants of the collapsed spaces. They had been there all the time. But it was only when we could look at living tissue that we could see that."

而是坍塌空间的残留物。只有观察活体组织时，才能够发现这点。

But the interstitium isn't just the "space between cells".

不过，interstitium不仅仅是“细胞间的空间”。

Theise and his collaborators think it should be reclassified as a proper organ because of its unique properties and structure which, Theise said, are "highly specific and dependent on the unique structures and cell types that form it".

研究人员认为，它应该被重新归类为一种独特器官，因为它具有独特的性能和结构。

Better understanding of how our bodies work is never a bad thing. But scientists speculate that these useful properties could also work against us, allowing cancerous cells to spread throughout the body.

深入了解人体运行机制从来不是件坏事。科学家推测，这种器官也可以用来对付人类自身，帮助癌细胞扩散至全身。

Theise's team found that in patients with some types of malignant cancers, cells could leave the tissues where they originated and leak into these channels, eventually contaminating the lymphatic system."Once they get in, it's like they're on a water slide," the pathologist told New Scientist. "We have a new window on the mechanism of tumor spread."

研究人员发现，在某些恶性肿瘤患者体内，细胞可以离开起源组织，渗透到这些通道内，最终感染淋巴系统。一旦进入通道，它们就仿佛坐上了水滑梯。

With further analysis of the fluid traveling across the interstitium, the researchers hope they may be able to detect cancer much earlier than they can today.

如今，我们加强了对肿瘤扩散机制的了解。研究人员希望通过进一步的分析，找到提早探测癌症的方法。