Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff. I'm Lauren Vogelbaum. In today's episode is a
Speaker 1: classic from our archives. In this one, we discuss the
Speaker 1: charmingly bizarre platypus and how it's milk maybe humanity's best
Speaker 1: hope against an antibiotic resistant future. Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbaum. Here.
Speaker 1: In the late eighteenth century, British zoologist George Shaw was
Speaker 1: asked to examine a specimen of a newly discovered creature
Speaker 1: fresh off the boat from Australia. He was one of
Speaker 1: the first scientists to clap eyes on the beaver duck
Speaker 1: that we call a platypus, and he understandably thought he
Speaker 1: was the but of a practical joke. He wrote, after
Speaker 1: examining the noble creature, it naturally excites the idea of
Speaker 1: some deceptive preparation by artificial means. And it's not like
Speaker 1: the platypus's outlandish appearance is just a cover for an
Speaker 1: unremarkable physiology and life history. This egg laying mammal use
Speaker 1: its food with gravel because it lacks teeth. In fact,
Speaker 1: it doesn't even have a stomach, but an esophagus that
Speaker 1: connects directly to its intestines. The males have venomous spurs
Speaker 1: on their hind legs, and they don't use their tails
Speaker 1: to steer or propel themselves through the water, but to
Speaker 1: store body fat. And their bills are so sensitive that
Speaker 1: they can detect the electromagnetic fields radiated by other organisms,
Speaker 1: allowing them to swim with their ears, eyes, and nose closed.
Speaker 1: But listen, y'all, it gets weirder. Platypuses, and yes, you
Speaker 1: can also say platypi or platipodes if you want. Nurse.
Speaker 1: They're young, but they don't have nipples, so the milk
Speaker 1: to sort of oozes out of their mammary glands and
Speaker 1: the babies lap it up off their mother's fur. And
Speaker 1: if you think that might be a bit on sanitary,
Speaker 1: especially for an animal that swims around in farm ponds
Speaker 1: all day, you'd be right. But don't worry. Platypus evolution
Speaker 1: came up with a solution to the problem of bacteria.
Speaker 1: Study found that while all mammals milk has antibacterial properties,
Speaker 1: platypus milk seems to have very special antimicrobial powers. A
Speaker 1: study published in March in the journal Structural Biology Communications
Speaker 1: reports that the biochemical reason for the germ busting properties
Speaker 1: of platypus milk is predictably weird. It contains a protein
Speaker 1: with a unique and previously unknown structure that might be
Speaker 1: key in fighting bacteria that have become resistant to antibiotics.
Speaker 1: What makes this monotream lactation protein or MLP so strange
Speaker 1: is its shape. Its folds form tight ringlets, which is
Speaker 1: why it was Christian to the Shirley Temple protein after
Speaker 1: the iconic care of the child Star. The research team
Speaker 1: managed to recreate the MLP in the lab, purify it,
Speaker 1: crystallize it, and then use X rays to determine its
Speaker 1: three D structure at the atomic level, a structure that
Speaker 1: has never been seen in any of the hundred thousand
Speaker 1: proteins discovered to date. Lead study author Janet Newman said,
Speaker 1: the most exciting thing for me was to see a
Speaker 1: protein shape that had never been seen before. It's like
Speaker 1: being a florist in seeing a completely new flower. So
Speaker 1: how could this fancy new antibacterial protein be used to
Speaker 1: fight superbugs? According to Newman, the research team plans to
Speaker 1: begin by figuring out the relationship between the extra curly
Speaker 1: form of the protein and its bacteria killing powers. She said.
Speaker 1: In theory, there are a number of approaches. We could
Speaker 1: tweak the structure a little by making site directed mutants
Speaker 1: of the protein in the lab. This would allow us
Speaker 1: to see how the activity changes each time until we
Speaker 1: build up an understanding of the mechanism of how this works.
Speaker 1: Or maybe we could use some form of the protein
Speaker 1: to try to isolate its binding partner on the bacterium,
Speaker 1: which might be some structure on the outside of the bacterium.
Speaker 1: According to the World Health Organization, antibiotic resistant bacterial infections
Speaker 1: are becoming a serious threat to public health worldwide. The
Speaker 1: heavy use of antibiotics and intensive animal farming, as well
Speaker 1: as overuse in human hospitals, has led to the rise
Speaker 1: and spread of these heavy duty microbes. Diseases like salmonella, pneumonia, tuberculosis,
Speaker 1: and gnarrhea, all once easily treated with antibiotics, are becoming
Speaker 1: less responsive to the drugs used to treat them. In
Speaker 1: the World Health Organization warned that we may be approaching
Speaker 1: a post antibiotic era, wherein antibiotics will no longer be
Speaker 1: effective in fighting infection. This would make everything from childbirth
Speaker 1: to organ transplants very difficult again, but maybe platypus milk
Speaker 1: can help. It's predictably so crazy that it just might work.
Speaker 1: Today's episode is based on the article Platopus milk Our
Speaker 1: best hope against an antibiotic resistant future on how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot Com, written by Jesslyn Shields. Brain Stuff is
Speaker 1: production of by Heart Radio in partnership with how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot Com, and it's produced by Tyler clang Or
Speaker 1: more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the heart Radio app,
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