Hierarchical tissue organization as a general mechanism to limit the accumulation of somatic mutations.

ABSTRACT: How can tissues generate large numbers of cells, yet keep the divisional load (the number of divisions along cell lineages) low in order to curtail the accumulation of somatic mutations and reduce the risk of cancer? To answer the question we consider a general model of hierarchically organized self-renewing tissues and show that the lifetime divisional load of such a tissue is independent of the details of the cell differentiation processes, and depends only on two structural and two dynamical parameters. Our results demonstrate that a strict analytical relationship exists between two seemingly disparate characteristics of self-renewing tissues: divisional load and tissue organization. Most remarkably, we find that a sufficient number of progressively slower dividing cell types can be alm

SUBMITTER: Derenyi I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5331224 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature