英科学家称每人体内有60组变异基因

　　This proved extremely challenging, given that, on average, just one in every 100 million letters of DNA is altered each generation.

　　研究人员发现，在一代人当中，每100000000个基因编码会出现一处变异的情况。

　　They also sorted mutations into those that occurred during the production of their parents' sperm or eggs, and those which happened after they were born.

　　科学家们还将源自父亲精子与母亲卵子之间的变异区隔开来，同时还理清了那些实在孩子出生以后发产生的变异。

　　The results, published in journal Nature Genetics, surprised scientists.

　　这份刊登在《自然遗传学》期刊上的研究论文使得不少生物学家感到十分惊讶。

　　They showed that in one family, 92 per cent of the child's mutations came from the father, while in another it was just 36 per cent.

　　据研究结果显示，在受测家庭的一组中，孩子所出现的92%的变异基因来自于父亲，然而在另一个家庭中，这一数据则仅为36%。

　　study co-author Dr Matt Hurles, from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, said: 'We now know that, in some families, most mutations might arise from the mother, in others most will arise from the father.

　　论文的作者之一，来自英国剑桥大学的桑格研究院的马特·赫里斯博士说：“现在我弄清楚了一点，在某些家庭中，绝大部分的变异来自于母亲，儿另一些家庭中变异源则来自父亲。”

　　'This is a surprise: many people expected that in all families most mutations would come from the father, due to the additional number of times that the genome needs to be copied to make a sperm, as opposed to an egg.'

　　“这样的结果多少有些出乎意料，在此前的大家普遍的认为，变异的绝大部分应该是来自于父亲，这是因为相对于卵子而言，精子在形成过程中需要消耗更多的时间进行基因的复制，这也就存在了更大的出现差错的可能。”

　　Co-author Professor Philip Awadalla, from the University of Montreal added: 'Today we have been able to test previous theories through new developments in experimental technologies and our analytical algorithms.

　　论文的作者之一是来自加拿大蒙特利大学的菲利普·阿瓦达教授，他表示：“如今我们可以对之前的理论进行仔细的验证，这是得益于采用了实验技术的发展，以及所使用的分析方法。”

　　'This has allowed us to find these new mutations, which are like very small needles in a very large haystack.'

　　“这便于我们发现新的变异，而这些就好像是大海捞针一般。”

　　The team plans to do further research into how factors like parental age and environment affects the number of mutations, and how they could use their findings to identify debilitating genetic diseases.

　　该研究小组目前在将来进行进一步的研究，例如找出父母亲的年龄与周围环境的因素是否会对于基因变异产生影响，以及他们的研究是否能够运用到测试有些遗传疾病的出现等等。