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| Natura: | Artículo científico |
| Lingua: | en |
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History and philosophy of the life sciences
2026
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| Accesso online: | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42268501/ |
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| _version_ | 1868266039384473601 |
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| author | Jinson, Shane T Maienschein, Jane Laubichler, Manfred |
| author_facet | Jinson, Shane T Maienschein, Jane Laubichler, Manfred Jinson, Shane T Maienschein, Jane Laubichler, Manfred |
| collection | PubMed - marine biology |
| contents | A computational case study of Günter Blobel's idea of protein topogenesis and its influence. Jinson, Shane T Maienschein, Jane Laubichler, Manfred In this case study we present a novel way to assess scientific influence using computational linguistic tools. Here, we use such tools to identify semantic influence, or nuanced language patterns, with which to determine precedence of an idea and directionality of its spread. We aim to quantitatively test cell biologist and historian Karl Matlin’s claim that Günter Blobel’s ideas on protein topogenesis were more influential and had a larger impact on cell biology than the total number of citations of his 1980 paper “Intracellular Protein Topogenesis” would suggest. Examining collections of molecular cell biology journal articles from the 1980s through to the 2010s, we examine papers citing Blobel’s (Proc Natl Acad Sci 77(3):1496–1500, 1980. 10.1073/pnas.77.3.1496) paper, as well as relevant papers not citing it from the same time periods. We find changes in the language of these publications during the 1980s and early 1990s that can be traced back to Blobel’s introduction of the concept of —or the spatial organizing of proteins that make up the cell—despite most cell biologists ignoring Blobel’s specific terms for sequences related to the phenomenon he describes, including the term “protein topogenesis” itself. We characterize language patterns from journal articles over different time periods for three different collections, each representing three communities of researchers: those citing Blobel’s paper, those citing different but related papers from around the same time, and a collection representative of the larger field relevant to each collection’s research topics. Finally, we demonstrate that the changes in language patterns of those discussing Blobel’s ideas in the 1980s and early 1990s are not limited to those directly citing his 1980 paper where the ideas were articulated. Specific terms related to the “protein topogenesis” concept first emerged within the network of researchers citing Blobel; the larger cell biology community then picked up these same language patterns and used them at similar rates five years after they were first detected in the smaller community of researchers his work. By deploying a suite of computational and quantitative methods representing auxiliary approaches to conducting history of science studies, we substantiate Matlin’s qualitative claim that the influence of Blobel’s “Intracellular Protein Topogenesis” far exceeds its citation count, and these ideas from Blobel somehow diffused into the larger community in a way that bypassed those directly citing these ideas. |
| format | Artículo científico |
| id | pubmed_42268501 |
| institution | PubMed |
| language | en |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| publisher | History and philosophy of the life sciences |
| record_format | pubmed |
| spellingShingle | A computational case study of Günter Blobel's idea of protein topogenesis and its influence. Jinson, Shane T Maienschein, Jane Laubichler, Manfred A computational case study of Günter Blobel's idea of protein topogenesis and its influence. Jinson, Shane T Maienschein, Jane Laubichler, Manfred In this case study we present a novel way to assess scientific influence using computational linguistic tools. Here, we use such tools to identify semantic influence, or nuanced language patterns, with which to determine precedence of an idea and directionality of its spread. We aim to quantitatively test cell biologist and historian Karl Matlin’s claim that Günter Blobel’s ideas on protein topogenesis were more influential and had a larger impact on cell biology than the total number of citations of his 1980 paper “Intracellular Protein Topogenesis” would suggest. Examining collections of molecular cell biology journal articles from the 1980s through to the 2010s, we examine papers citing Blobel’s (Proc Natl Acad Sci 77(3):1496–1500, 1980. 10.1073/pnas.77.3.1496) paper, as well as relevant papers not citing it from the same time periods. We find changes in the language of these publications during the 1980s and early 1990s that can be traced back to Blobel’s introduction of the concept of —or the spatial organizing of proteins that make up the cell—despite most cell biologists ignoring Blobel’s specific terms for sequences related to the phenomenon he describes, including the term “protein topogenesis” itself. We characterize language patterns from journal articles over different time periods for three different collections, each representing three communities of researchers: those citing Blobel’s paper, those citing different but related papers from around the same time, and a collection representative of the larger field relevant to each collection’s research topics. Finally, we demonstrate that the changes in language patterns of those discussing Blobel’s ideas in the 1980s and early 1990s are not limited to those directly citing his 1980 paper where the ideas were articulated. Specific terms related to the “protein topogenesis” concept first emerged within the network of researchers citing Blobel; the larger cell biology community then picked up these same language patterns and used them at similar rates five years after they were first detected in the smaller community of researchers his work. By deploying a suite of computational and quantitative methods representing auxiliary approaches to conducting history of science studies, we substantiate Matlin’s qualitative claim that the influence of Blobel’s “Intracellular Protein Topogenesis” far exceeds its citation count, and these ideas from Blobel somehow diffused into the larger community in a way that bypassed those directly citing these ideas. |
| title | A computational case study of Günter Blobel's idea of protein topogenesis and its influence. |
| url | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42268501/ |