Not Beyond Reasonable Doubt: Howard Temin’s Provirus Hypothesis Revisited

During the 1960s, Howard M. Temin (1934–1994), dared to advocate a “heretical” hypothesis that appeared to be at variance with the central dogma of molecular biology, understood by many to imply that information transfer in nature occurred only from DNA to RNA. Temin’s provirus hypothesis offered a simple explanation of both virus replication and viral-induced cancer and stated that Rous sarcoma virus, an RNA virus, is replicated via a DNA intermediate. Popular accounts of this scientific episode, written after the discovery of an RNA-directed DNA polymerase in 1970, tend to describe the reaction to his proposition as ardent opposition. Typically these accounts use a ‹molecular biology’ standpoint emphasizing the central dogma’s part in its rejection. In this article, however, this episode will be examined from a joint perspective of virology and experimental cancer research. From this perspective it is clear that Temin’s work was well within the epistemological and methodological boundaries of virology and cancer research. Still, scientists did have␣reasons to doubt the provirus hypothesis, but these do not seem to be good enough to either justify an account that portrays Temin as a renegade or his ideas as heretical.     

端粒和端粒酶的发现历程

端粒是染色体末端的特殊结构,它由简单重复的DNA序列和与之结合的蛋白质构成,保护染色体末端不被降解或融合,并使染色体能够完全复制。端粒酶是特殊的逆转录酶,它利用自身的RNA亚基作为模板复制出端粒DNA。端粒和端粒酶的研究进程中贯穿着发现现象/问题-提出概念/模型-实验验证的思路,整个过程就像相继解开一个个谜团一样有趣。因此它是一个很好的科学问题推演的案例。本文以时间为顺序进行整理,重现了这一发现历程。