Whereas old dependency theory was Marxist in presentation, but nationalist in orientation, seeking to combine a theory of class struggle with a nationalist âthird worldistâ ideology, the new dependency theory is institutionalist in its analysis and political orientation.
Griffith concluded that the type II-R had been transformed into the lethal III-S strain by a transforming principle that was somehow part of the dead III-S strain bacteria. Today, we know that the transforming principle Griffith observed was the DNA of the III-s strain bacteria. While the bacteria had been killed, the DNA had survived the heating process and was taken up by the II-R strain bacteria. The III-S strain DNA contains the genes that form the protective polysaccharide capsule.
For the first stage of the transforming principle experiment, Griffith showed that mice injected with III-S died but when injected with II-R lived and showed few symptoms. The next stage showed that if the mice were injected with type III-S that had been killed by heat, the mice all lived, indicating that the bacteria had been rendered ineffective. The interesting results came with the third part of the experiment, where mice were injected with a mixture of heat killed III-S and live II-R. Interestingly enough, the mice all died, indicating that some sort on information had been passed from the dead type III-S to the live type II-R. Blood sampling showed that the blood of the dead mice contained both live type III-S and live type II-R bacteria.