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Cancer

Darwinian tumour suppression

Nature volume 509, pages 435–436 (2014)Cite this article

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Competition for access to a survival factor has been found to explain why incoming cells from the bone marrow replace resident cells in the thymus. Reducing this competition can cause tumours to form. See Article p.465

The idea that cells in the body compete in a Darwinian manner — that is, according to the laws of natural selection — has been postulated several times. First, in 1881, zoologist Wilhelm Roux anticipated that cells and 'parts' of an organism must fight with each other to form the body during embryonic development. A few years later, neuroscientist Santiago Ramón y Cajal predicted that neurons undergo a competitive struggle for space and nutrition. This suggestion gained support with neurologist Rita Levi-Montalcini's discovery of growth factors, and their integration into the 'neurotrophic theory', which proposed that neurons compete for limiting amounts of survival-promoting factors, a process that potentially eliminates unfit cells. On page 465 of this issue, Martins et al.1 describe another example in which Darwinian competition between cells occurs naturally — in this case, serving as a potent tumour-suppressor mechanism in the thymus.

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Figure 1: Cellular competition prevents tumour formation.

References

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  1. Eduardo Moreno is at the Institute of Cell Biology, IZB, University of Bern, Bern CH-3012, Switzerland.,

    Eduardo Moreno

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  1. Eduardo Moreno
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Moreno, E. Darwinian tumour suppression. Nature 509, 435–436 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13337

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