Treating Cancer as an Invasive Species.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-2020

Keywords

JGM

JAX Source

Mol Cancer Res 2020 Jan; 18(1):20-26.

Volume

18

Issue

1

First Page

20

Last Page

26

ISSN

1557-3125

PMID

31527151

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1158/1541-7786.MCR-19-0262

Grant

CA230031,CA191848,CA224067,CA034196

Abstract

To cure a patient's cancer is to eradicate invasive cells from the ecosystem of the body. However, the ecologic complexity of this challenge is not well understood. Here we show how results from eradications of invasive mammalian species from islands-one of the few contexts in which invasive species have been regularly cleared-inform new research directions for treating cancer. We first summarize the epidemiologic characteristics of island invader eradications and cancer treatments by analyzing recent datasets from the Database of Invasive Island Species Eradications and The Cancer Genome Atlas, detailing the superior successes of island eradication projects. Next, we compare how genetic and environmental factors impact success in each system. These comparisons illuminate a number of promising cancer research and treatment directions, such as heterogeneity engineering as motivated by gene drives and adaptive therapy; multiscale analyses of how population heterogeneity potentiates treatment resistance; and application of ecological data mining techniques to high-throughput cancer data. We anticipate that interdisciplinary comparisons between tumor progression and invasive species would inspire development of novel paradigms to cure cancer.

Comments

We thank medical illustrator Matt Wimsatt for assistance with Fig. 1. We also thank Razelle Kurzrock and Sheng Li for helpful discussions.

Link to Full Text

Share

COinS