许多细菌都会产生对人体有害的毒素，位于英国Norwich的John Innes研究中心的科学家们对一种土壤细菌的纳米生产机制——Tat系统——进行研究，发现了一种方法，能够驾驭细菌分泌的过程来制造药剂。他们的结果发表在11月7日的《PNAS》上。
??科学家们通过对Tat系统的研究，发现这个系统使用的蛋白质种类要比想象的多。
??现在的生物技术工业已经利用细菌来生产用于生物洗涤剂、生物药剂等的蛋白质。但是有些生物技术和生物医学所需的蛋白质很难使用目前的方法制造。科学家们希望通过对Tat系统的驾驭能够更容易地制造这些蛋白质。
??东英格兰大学的教授、拥有英国医学研究理事会（MRC）研究院职位的Tracy Palmer说：“Tat系统通过辨认连接在蛋白质末端的信号序列来确定分泌哪些蛋白质。我们在宾夕法尼亚大学的合作者们开发了一个计算机程序来搜寻细菌的基因组，从而预测系统中会使用哪些蛋白质。研究中我们发现了被系统识别的很大数量的信号序列。我们下一步是把这些信号序列连接在医学上很重要的蛋白质，这样就能利用Tat系统分泌这些蛋白质了。”
??这项工作是作为英国的“生物技术和生物科学研究委员会”（BBSRC）的基因组开发计划（Exploiting Genomics Initiative）的一部分。最近，Palmer的小组加入了整个欧洲队Tat系统进行研究的“Tat 机器计划”中。
英文原文：
Nature's nanomachines harnessed to make drugs
Many bacteria produce toxins that can threaten human health, however new research into how bacteria secrete these substances is giving clues as to how scientists could harness these processes to produce biopharmaceuticals. Researchers at the John Innes Centre (JIC) in Norwich have used state-of-the-art technology to study a nanomachine in soil bacteria called the Tat system, which the bacteria use to secrete a range of proteins that help them digest food and compete with other microorganisms in the soil.
The scientists?latest work, published today in the respected journal PNAS, identifies which proteins are exported via the Tat system, revealing that this system is used by more proteins than previously thought. The biotechnology industry already uses bacteria to make proteins to use in products such as biological washing powder or pharmaceuticals, but some are difficult to produce using current methods. By harnessing the Tat system, the scientists hope that it will be easier to make these proteins for biotechnological and biomedical purposes.
"The Tat nanomachine selects which proteins to secrete by recognising a short signal sequence attached to the end of the protein", explains Professor Tracy Palmer who has an MRC Fellowship with the University of East Anglia. "Our collaborators at the University of Pennsylvania have developed a computer program to search the bacterial genome to predict which proteins use the Tat system, and in this study we have verified their results experimentally and found a significant number of signals that are recognised by this system. The next step is to attach these signals to medically important proteins so they can be secreted by the bacteria using the Tat system."
The foundation work for this project was started as part of the BBSRC's Exploiting Genomics Initiative; more recently Prof Palmer抯 team has joined forces with the "Tat Machine Project", an EU-funded consortium of researchers from across Europe studying the Tat system. In addition to using the Tat nanomachine to improve production of biopharmaceuticals, the consortium are studying the system in several different types of bacteria, including pathogenic species like E. coli O157 and Pseudomonas aeruginosa to explore Tat as a potential target for new antibiotics.
