Veiga-Crespo Patricia, Ageitos José Manuel, Poza Margarita, Villa Tomás G
Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Pharmacy, Campus Sur, 15782 Santiago de Compostela, A Coruña, Spain.
J Pharm Sci. 2007 Aug;96(8):1917-24. doi: 10.1002/jps.20853.
The discovery and development of antibiotics was one of the greatest successes of Medicine in the 20th century and allowed the control of many diseases caused by microorganisms. Nevertheless, it is necessary to search constantly for new therapeutic tools in the continuing fight against disease-causing microorganisms and this probably leads us to today's concept of enzybiotics. Although microorganism-degrading enzymes have been known since the beginning of the last century, their use was soon forgotten because of the widespread use of antibiotics. The term enzybiotic is a hybrid word from "enzyme" and "antibiotic" and refers to phages: that is, viruses that attack and lyse bacteria and that can potentially help us to fight bacterial diseases. If the concept of enzybiotic is extended to antifungal enzymes, an enormous potential in the struggle against microorganism-due diseases may become available in the foreseeable future.
抗生素的发现与研发是20世纪医学领域最伟大的成就之一，使得许多由微生物引起的疾病得到了控制。然而，在与致病微生物的持续斗争中，仍有必要不断寻找新的治疗手段，这或许就引出了我们如今的酶生素概念。尽管自上世纪初人们就已知道能降解微生物的酶，但由于抗生素的广泛使用，它们的应用很快就被遗忘了。“酶生素”这个词是由“酶”和“抗生素”组合而成的混成词，指的是噬菌体：即攻击并裂解细菌、有可能帮助我们对抗细菌性疾病的病毒。如果将酶生素的概念扩展到抗真菌酶，那么在可预见的未来，对抗微生物引起的疾病可能会有巨大的潜力。
