Scales of Cancer Evolution: Selfish Genome or Cooperating Cells?

The exploitation of the evolutionary modus operandi of cancer to steer its progression towards drug sensitive cancer cells is a challenging research topic. Integrating evolutionary principles into cancer therapy requires properly identified selection level, the relevant timescale, and the respective...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cancers 2022-07, Vol.14 (13), p.3253
Main Author: Brutovský, Branislav
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Apoptosis
Biology
Cancer
Cloning
DNA methylation
DNA repair
Epigenetics
Etiology
Evolution
Gene expression
Genetic algorithms
Genomes
Genomic instability
Genotype & phenotype
Microenvironments
Mutation
Optimization techniques
Phenotypic plasticity
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Summary:The exploitation of the evolutionary modus operandi of cancer to steer its progression towards drug sensitive cancer cells is a challenging research topic. Integrating evolutionary principles into cancer therapy requires properly identified selection level, the relevant timescale, and the respective fitness of the principal selection unit on that timescale. Interpretation of some features of cancer progression, such as increased heterogeneity of isogenic cancer cells, is difficult from the most straightforward evolutionary view with the cancer cell as the principal selection unit. In the paper, the relation between the two levels of intratumour heterogeneity, genetic, due to genetic instability, and non-genetic, due to phenotypic plasticity, is reviewed and the evolutionary role of the latter is outlined. In analogy to the evolutionary optimization in a changing environment, the cell state dynamics in cancer clones are interpreted as the risk diversifying strategy bet hedging, optimizing the balance between the exploitation and exploration of the cell state space.
ISSN:2072-6694
2072-6694
DOI:10.3390/cancers14133253