An international team of scientists has just sequenced a protein crystal located in the midgut of cockroaches¹. The reason?

最近，一个国际科学家团队确定了蟑螂中肠内的蛋白质晶体的结构序列。为什么要研究这个？

It’s more than four times as nutritious³ as cow’s milk and, the researchers think it could be the key to feeding our growing population in the future.

因为它的营养价值是牛奶的四倍多。研究人员认为在人口不断增长的将来，蟑螂奶可以成为人类的重要食物。

Although most cockroaches don’t actually produce milk, Diploptera punctate, which is the only known cockroach² to give birth to live young, has been shown to pump out a type of ‘milk’ containing protein crystals to feed its babies.

尽管大多数蟑螂自身并不产奶，但有一种斑点折翅类蟑螂，是目前已知的唯一一种胎生蟑螂，它会分泌出一种含有蛋白质晶体的“奶”来喂养下一代。

The fact that an insect produces milk is pretty fascinating – but what fascinated researchers is the fact that a single one of these protein crystals contains more than three times the amount of energy found in an equivalent amount of buffalo⁴ milk (which is also higher in calories then dairy milk).

昆虫产奶这一事实本身已十分有趣，但更让研究者感兴趣的是一份蛋白质晶体中所含的能量是相同重量的水牛奶的三倍（所含热量也比相同重量的牛奶多）。

Clearly milking a cockroach isn’t the most feasible option, so an international team of scientists headed by researchers from the Institute of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine in India decided⁵ to sequence the genes⁶ responsible for producing the milk protein crystals to see if they could somehow replicate⁷ them in the lab.

显然，要像挤牛奶一样挤蟑螂的“奶”并不是个切实可行的方法，所以这个国际科学家团队就决定测定控制产生蛋白质晶体的基因序列，尝试在实验室内复制这组基因。该团队的领头人是印度干细胞生物学和再生医学研究院的研究人员。

"The crystals are like a complete food - they have proteins, fats and sugars. If you look into the protein sequences, they have all the essential amino acids," said Sanchari Banerjee, one of the team, in an interview with the Times of India.

其中一名队员桑贾利·班纳吉在《印度时报》的采访中说道：“这些晶体就像完整的食物，有蛋白质、脂肪还有糖分。如果你仔细研究蛋白质序列，还会发现它们含有一切必不可少的氨基酸。”

Not only is the milk a dense⁸ source of calories and nutrients⁹, it’s also time released. As the protein in the milk is digested, the crystal releases more protein at an equivalent rate to continue the digestion¹⁰.

蟑螂奶不仅富含热量和营养物质，同时也具有时间控释性的。当奶中的蛋白质被消化，晶体会相应地释放出等量的蛋白质来继续被消化。

"It’s time-released food," said Subramanian Ramaswamy, who led the project. "if you need food that is calorifically high, that is time released and food that is complete. This is it."

研究负责人萨布拉马年·拉马斯瓦米说：“这是时间控释性的食物。如果你需要高热量、具有时间控释性并且营养全面的食物，那么非它莫属了。”

It’s important to point out that this dense protein source is definitely never going to be for those trying to lose weight, and probably isn’t even required for most western diets, where we are already eating too many calories per day.

需要指出的是，这种高蛋白质的食物并不适合想要减肥的人，也不适合大多数西方人的饮食，因为西方人每天已经摄入了太多的卡路里。

But for those who struggle to get the amount of calories required per day, this could be a quick and easy way to get calories and nutrients.

但是对于那些每天努力要获得足够热量的人来说，这将是他们获取热量和营养快捷而简单的方式。

"They're very stable. They can be a fantastic protein supplement," said Ramaswamy.

拉马斯瓦米说：“它们十分稳定，将会是极好的蛋白质补充物。”

Now the researchers have the sequence, they are hoping to get yeast¹¹ to produce the crystal in much larger quantities- making it slightly more efficient (and less gross) than extracting crystals from cockroach’s guts¹².

目前科学家们已经测定出了结构序列，他们希望用酵母大量生产这种蛋白质晶体，相比直接从蟑螂肠中获取能更有效率一点，也比较不会令人恶心。