过去10～12年的实验研究已经开创了一个新领域——癌的分子基础。它的主要成就之一是鉴定和弄清了一组致癌的基因——癌基因的一些功能。探索癌基因的主要途径是对致癌病毒的研究。二组彼此独立而又相关的病毒学家分别着重于DNA或RNA肿瘤病毒的研究,从而确定了癌基因。目前已清楚,DNA和RNA病毒癌基因有着完全不同的起源。在已研究过的每种DNA病毒(乳头状多瘤病毒、腺病毒、疱疹病毒、肝DNA病毒、痘病毒)都有一代表株,已证明这些代表株或能引起动物的肿瘤,或与动物肿瘤的发生密切相关。在适当实验条 The past 10 to 12 years of experimental research has created a new area - the molecular basis of cancer. One of its major achievements was the identification and clarification of some functions of oncogenes, a group of oncogenic genes. The main way to explore oncogenes is the study of oncogenic viruses. Two groups of independent and related virologists focused on the DNA or RNA oncovirus research to identify oncogenes. It is now clear that DNA and RNA viral oncogenes have completely different origins. Each of the DNA viruses that have been studied (papillary polyoma, adenovirus, herpes virus, hepadnavirus, and poxvirus) has a representative strain that has been shown to cause tumors in animals or tumors in animals. The occurrence is closely related. In the appropriate experiment