It's one of the underwater world's classic partnerships: clownfish and Nemo hides out in the anemone, which helps keep predatory fish at bay.

这是水下世界中典型的一对小伙伴: 小丑鱼和藏在海葵的Nemo，以便抵抗食肉鱼。

"But at the same time there are other fish species that will kind of nibble on the sea anemones, and the clownfish will actually go out and scare them away." Jeff Gore, a biophysicist at MIT. "So in this case there's across-protection mutualism between these two species in which they help to avoid predation."

“但同时，其它种类的鱼也会啃食海中的海葵，而这时小丑鱼就真会蹿出来吓走它们。”Jeff Gore是麻省理工学院的一名生物物理学家。“所以在这种情况下这两个物种就形成了互利共生的关系。”

Such cross-protection is usually seen between two animals. But Gore studies the same sort of mutualism in microbes. He and his team demonstrated the first experimental example of that cross-protective relationship in drug-resistant microbes, using two strains of antibiotic-resistant E. coli bacteria: one resistant to ampicillin, the other to chloramphenicol.

这种互相保护的关系经常见于两种动物之间。但是Gore研究了微生物之间的这种互利关系。他和团队首次用实验证明了抗药性微生物之间的这种互相保护的关系。他们采用了耐抗生素的大肠杆菌菌种：一种菌种抗氨比西林，而另外一个菌种抗氯霉素。

The researchers grew the bacteria together in a test tube, in the presence of both antibiotics. And rather than succumbing to the drugs, each bacterial strain deactivated one of the two antibiotics—thus protecting the other strain. That activity led to a stable coexistence over time. Which Gore says could in theory give the bugs an opportunity to swap resistance genes, through what’s called horizontal gene transfer—one bacterium donates genetic material to another. Any such transfer could make either or both strains individually resistant to both types of antibiotics. The findings are in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

研究人员在一个实验试管中同时培养两类菌种，并同时添加两种抗生素。结果表明，这两类菌种并没有因为抗生素的作用而死亡，而是每种菌各自抵抗其中一种抗生素——同时便保护了对方。这种行为能使菌种稳定互存。对此Gore发表评论，理论上讲，这就使细菌互相交换抗性基因，即水平基因转移——一种细菌将自己的遗传物质馈赠给另一类细菌。任何此类水平转移活动可以使两种菌种的一种或者二者全部都各自产生出抵抗两种抗生素的新突变后代类型。该研究已经发表在《国家科学研究进展》杂志上。

The same story might play out in our guts, too—but it's too early to translate it into medical guidance. "It's always important to remember that just because we see a particular dynamic in the laboratory doesn't mean we should immediately go and change our clinical dosing practices. But then those sorts of results are then used as a guide for the kinds of phenomena that clinicians may want to watch out for in their circumstances." ‘Cause the more we know about this bacterial buddy system, the better we may be at breaking it up if they team up against us.

很重要的一点需要牢记，我们只是在实验室中看到了这种特别的动态行为，这并不意味着我们就可以立即采用并改变临床用药方针。但可是，当临床医生想要在他们的工作环境中观察的时候，这种实验结果届时将可以作为对这种现象研究的一种指导方针。 因为我们对这种菌的生活体系了解的越多，将来如果它们彼此合作对付我们，我们可能会更好的打击消灭这些它们。