Prehistory of the Notion of Circulating Nucleic Acids in Plasma/Serum (CNAPS)

Abstract

In the late 50s and early 60s of the last century, a theoretical fight was taking place between Western and Russian scientists about the theory explaining the mechanism of evolution. According to neo-Darwinism, evolution was the result of hazard and necessity, that is, mutations arriving by chance favoring the survival of the fittest. For the Russian geneticists, acquired characteristics were the basis of evolution, that is, the environment modified the characteristics of the gene. One of the main experiments on which the Russian geneticists based their theory was the transmission of hereditary characteristics by a special technique of grafting between two varieties of plants-a mentor plant and a pupil plant. The pupil variety being entirely dependent on the development of the mentor plant its hereditary characteristics were modified accordingly. In the Western world these experiments were regarded with doubt. We were among the few who tried to repeat this kind of experiment. After three generations of grafting between two varieties of eggplant, we succeeded in obtaining hereditary modifications of the pupil plants, which acquired some of the characteristics of the mentor variety. The linkage between some hereditary characteristics of the mentor plant were broken, the segregation of the offspring was abnormal, dominant characteristics appearing in the offspring of a recessive plant. Rather than adopting the views of the Russian scientists about acquired characteristics, we suggested that DNA was circulating between the mentor and pupil plants and assumed that some nucleic acid molecules bearing genetic information could enter the somatic and reproductive cells of the pupil plant at a propitious moment and remain active.

Origins, structures, and functions of circulating DNA in oncology

“…The story began in the 1960s with the work of M. Stroun, P. Anker, and P. Gahan in the context of an ideological war over the Darwinian theory between the Russians and the West [ 170 – 172 ]. Russian researchers were interested by a commentary of Darwin concerning the nonsexual transmission of characters through intervarietal vegetal graft experiments performed by a number of English researchers [ 173 , 174 ].…”

“…After a few years in Belgium and in Israel, he came back in 1970 to Geneva where he worked with Philippe Anker. Severe criticisms occurred when they published that living cells, frog auricles, and human lymphocytes spontaneously released DNA [ 170 , 187 ]. The difficulties and pressures again returned from both the university and the Swiss National Fund for Scientific Research.…”

Extracellular nucleic acids

“…(93) The development of crown galls, which are considered a plant tumor, is the result of a genetic transformation of plant cells by the bacterium Agrobacterium tumefaciens, which deliver DNA. The foreign DNA can move freely from cell to cell in the plant, where it enters nuclei of plant cells and lead to the formation of secondary tumors, distant from the primary tumor.…”

A new perspective on Darwin’s Pangenesis

“…Stroun et al (1963) induced hereditary changes in the domestic chicken by blood transfusion. The same team, after three generations of grafting between two varieties of aubergine ( Solanum melongena ), succeeded in obtaining hereditary modifications of the recipient plants, which acquired some of the characteristics of the donors (Stroun, Mathon & Stroun, 1963; Stroun and Anker, 2006). Recent work on bacteria, plants, animal cells and organs, and human cells, blood plasma and serum led them to suggest that nucleic acids are released by living cells and circulate throughout the whole organism (Stroun & Anker, 2005).…”