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CANCER

A confetti trail of tumour evolution

Nature Cell Biology volume 20, pages 639–641 (2018)Cite this article

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Multiple clones of cancer cells co-exist within a tumour, and yet it is not clear when these subclones arise and how they contribute to tumour progression. A multicolour clonal tracing study now shows that benign skin tumours are mostly monoclonal while the more advanced lesions are composed of multiple intermixed subclones.

Early studies of oncogenic transformation of normal cells postulated that each cancer arises from a single cell that proliferates in an unrestrained manner, gradually accumulates mutations and eventually overcomes environmental constraints of the tissue to generate a tumour mass1. However, in-depth studies of the genetic profiles of human tumours, facilitated by next generation sequencing, have shown that the vast majority of cancers are composed of subpopulations (subclones) of cells with different mutational makeups2. This intratumoural clonal heterogeneity is a major challenge to cancer treatment, as cells with different properties will respond variably to any given drug. Therefore, a growing field of research focuses on exploring how clonal heterogeneity contributes to tumour development and progression, and how it changes during therapy3.

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Fig. 1: Schematic model of the experiments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medical Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, USA

    Michalina Janiszewska & Kornelia Polyak

  2. Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Michalina Janiszewska & Kornelia Polyak

  3. Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA, USA

    Michalina Janiszewska & Kornelia Polyak

Authors
  1. Michalina Janiszewska
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  2. Kornelia Polyak
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Correspondence to Kornelia Polyak.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Janiszewska, M., Polyak, K. A confetti trail of tumour evolution. Nat Cell Biol 20, 639–641 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41556-018-0110-7

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