DNA无处不在。现在可以轻松采集了 | 新知

《经济学人·商论》2023-09-27

Easy fieldwork
轻松的野外考察

BIOLOGICAL FIELDWORK can mean trips to exotic places. But the work itself can be tedious, especially when you are trying to track down elusive subjects. The most common method is to send a few eager graduate students armed with camera traps and several weeks of spare time. But perhaps not for much longer. A paper published in Current Biology, whose lead authors are Christina Lynggaard at the University of Copenhagen and Jan Gogarten at the Helmholtz Institute for One Health in Germany, suggests an easier method: simply swabbing nearby leaves for DNA.
做生物田野调查可能得去异国他乡的奇异地点。但这项工作本身可能非常乏味，尤其当你试图追踪的对象还踪迹难寻时。最常见的做法就是找几个热情高涨又有几周空闲时间的研究生，让他们带上红外触发相机去完成任务。但这可能很快就会改变了。由哥本哈根大学的克里斯蒂娜·林加德（Christina Lynggaard）和德国亥姆霍兹大健康研究所（Helmholtz Institute for One Health）的扬·戈嘉顿（Jan Gogarten）领衔发表在《当代生物学》（Current Biology）上的一篇论文提出了一种更简单的方法：只需要拿根拭子在周边的树叶上抹几下采集些DNA就可以了。

The DNA in question is called “environmental DNA” (eDNA for short). It refers to all the genetic information that animals shed as they go about their daily business: breathing, urinating, moving around, or interacting with their environment in any way. In recent years gene-sequencing technology has become quick and sensitive enough to pick out genetic sequences from particular animals—including humans—from this ubiquitous eDNA.
这里所说的DNA被称为“环境DNA”（简称eDNA）。它指的是动物在日常的呼吸、排尿、走动或以任何方式与环境互动时散落的各种遗传信息。近年来，基因测序技术已经变得足够快速和灵敏，可以从这种无处不在的eDNA中识别出是哪种动物（包括人类）留下了基因序列。

One way of doing so is simply to blow air through filters, then analyse them to see which critters live in the vicinity. Aware of that technique, Drs Gogarten and Lynggaard wondered if there might be a simpler approach. Air-sampling systems can take days to do their work. Maintenance must be done, and filters must be changed. But given that eDNA is literally blowing around ecosystems, the researchers wondered if it might be collecting on leaves.
一种做法是用过滤器过滤空气，再分析过滤器捕获的信息来判断附近有哪些动物。戈嘉顿和林加德了解这种技术，但他们想知道是否有更简单的方法。空气采样系统可能需要几天的时间才能得出结果。系统需要维护，并且必须经常更换过滤器。但顾名思义，eDNA是散布在生态系统中各处的，两位研究人员想知道它是否会聚集在叶子上。... ...

【想要继续阅读付费文章？】下载《经济学人·商论》App，订阅后可获取全文双语版

衍生阅读 | DNA主题阅读

《经济学人·商论》2018-10

《正向螺旋》(Virtuous spirals)

在DNA中存储计算机数据

正向螺旋

自然界的数据存储介质可能很快就有新用途

扫码下载APP阅读全文

订阅《经济学人·商论》

与全球百万精英同步阅读