Preface/Front Matter

Abstract

It was in 1970 that back-to-back reports in the journal Nature by Baltimore (Nature 226: 1209–1211, 1970) and by Temin and Mizutani (Nature 226: 1211–1213, 1970) provided the first evidence for the existence of an RNA-dependent DNA polymerase in retroviral particles. The editorial commentary that accompanied the reports promised that this discovery would “have important implications, not only for carcinogenesis by RNA viruses, but also for the general understanding of genetic transcription.” Indeed, this new enzyme, reverse transcriptase, was to play a central role in molecular biology in the ensuing years for these and other reasons as well.

The first impact of the discovery of reverse transcriptase was to refute the strict interpretation of the “Central Dogma” of molecular biology that information transfer was always unidirectional from DNA to RNA to protein. In revising dogma, a new generation of scientists was reinstructed in an essential element of good science: the challenging of “established” concepts. Second, reverse transcriptase was important to our understanding of cancer: Its presence explained how an RNA virus could induce genetic changes in a cell, ultimately leading to our present concept of the genetic basis of the disease. Third, the enzyme has played an important role in the development of our understanding of recombination and transduction in eukaryotic cells.

Most of our younger generation of molecular biologists have been introduced to reverse transcriptase as a tool for the synthesis and cloning of cDNAs. In the last several years, reverse transcriptase has also become important as