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COLORECTAL CANCER

Holding back the competition

Nature Reviews Cancer volume 21, page 480 (2021)Cite this article

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Cell competition is a phenomenon whereby cells that have a fitness advantage (‘winners’) eliminate neighbouring cells that are less fit (‘losers’). Various genes with known roles in cancer can influence cell competition either positively or negatively. However, we still know very little about how competition influences tumour initiation. Three studies published in Nature have examined this question in the intestinal epithelium.

Van Neerven et al. began by looking at distinctly labelled co-cultures of WT and Apc−/− intestinal organoids. Apc−/− organoids took over these cultures, reducing expansion of WT organoids in a manner dependent on secreted factors (in conditioned media (CM)). WT organoids exposed to Apc−/− CM had transcriptional changes consistent with decreased stemness and increased differentiation, and were less clonogenic on serial passaging, relative to organoids exposed to WT CM. Similar results were observed with APC−/− human intestinal organoids.

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References

Original articles

  • Flanagan, D. J. et al. NOTUM from Apc-mutant cells biases clonal competition to initiate cancer. Nature 594, 430–435 (2021)

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  • van Neerven, S. M. et al. Apc-mutant cells act as supercompetitors in intestinal tumour initiation. Nature 594, 436–441 (2021)

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  • Yum, M. K. et al. Tracing oncogene-driven remodelling of the intestinal stem cell niche. Nature 594, 442–447 (2021)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

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  1. Nature Reviews Cancer http://www.nature.com/nrc/

    Sarah Seton-Rogers

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  1. Sarah Seton-Rogers
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Correspondence to Sarah Seton-Rogers.

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Seton-Rogers, S. Holding back the competition. Nat Rev Cancer 21, 480 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41568-021-00384-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41568-021-00384-8

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