Determining cancer risk: the evolutionary multistage model or total stem cell divisions?

ABSTRACT: A recent hypothesis proposed that the total number of stem cell divisions in a tissue (TSCD model) determine its intrinsic cancer risk; however, a different model-the multistage model-has long been used to understand how cancer originates. Identifying the correct model has important implications for interpreting the frequency of cancers. Using worldwide cancer incidence data, we applied three tests to the TSCD model and an evolutionary multistage model of carcinogenesis (EMMC), a model in which cancer suppression is recognized as an evolving trait, with natural selection acting to suppress cancers causing a significant mean loss of Darwinian fitness. Each test supported the EMMC but contradicted the TSCD model. This outcome undermines results based on the TSCD model quantifying the relativ

SUBMITTER: Nunney L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7779499 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature