巨型恐龙患上了一种至今仍在人类身上可见的痛苦疾病

巨型恐龙患上了一种至今仍在人类身上可见的痛苦疾病

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.

古生物学家们重拾了恐龙尾巴化石，其中包含了一种可怕疾病的明确证据。值得注意的是，大约六千六百万年后，这种罕见的情况仍然可以在今天的人类身上找到。

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.

尾椎化石曾经属于一只年轻的鸭嘴龙，鸭嘴龙是一种食草动物，在8000万到6600万年前，它们在地球上以大群的形式生活。虽然这个恐龙家族包括了各种各样的物种，但它们通常都是巨大的野兽，身长超过10米(32.8英尺)，体重达几吨。

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).

在加拿大阿尔伯塔省南部的一个大草原上发现这块化石后，以色列特拉维夫大学(TAU)的一组研究人员注意到其中两块椎骨(下图)上有大的空洞。进一步检查发现，这些不寻常的蛀牙与朗格汉斯细胞组织细胞增多症(LCH)患者的病变非常相似。

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.

这项发表在《科学报告》杂志上的研究，标志着首次在恐龙身上发现这种疾病。

"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.

“我们扫描了恐龙的椎骨，创建了一个计算机三维重建的肿瘤和血管喂养它。微观和宏观分析证实，它实际上是LCH。”该研究的第一作者，来自萨克勒医学院解剖学和人类学的希拉·梅博士在一份声明中说。、

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是一种罕见的疾病(有时被称为癌症)，它是由一种突变导致朗格汉斯细胞(一种抗感染的免疫细胞)不受控制地生长和增殖而引起的。这可能导致细胞堆积，导致深层组织损伤或骨骼损伤。你可以想象，这是一种非常痛苦的疾病。它最常见于儿童和大多数设法生存的患者身上。

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.

它通常与人类有关，但也有文献记载在其他一些动物中，如老虎和树鼩。然而，如前所述，在灭绝的动物中从未见过。

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.

恐龙身上的疾病通常很难诊断，但也不是完全没有听说过。2016年，科学家们在鸭嘴龙化石中发现了首例化脓性关节炎，这是一种关节炎症，由骨头软骨内的细菌感染引起。同样，恐龙也受到了癌症的影响，这一点已得到证实。利用新的工具和技术，我们希望能够诊断出更多的恐龙疾病，这也可以帮助我们了解人类疾病及其起源。

"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.

“这类研究……对进化医学做出了重要而有趣的贡献，这是一个相对较新的研究领域，研究疾病随着时间的推移的发展和行为。”著名的以色列·赫什科维茨教授指出，他是来自于TAU大学的解剖学和人类学以及丹·大卫人类进化和生物历史研究中心的教授。

"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."

“我们正试图理解为什么某些疾病在进化中幸存下来，并试图找出导致它们的原因，以便开发出新的有效的治疗方法。”