ArticleEvolutionary applications2013
Peto's paradox revisited: theoretical evolutionary dynamics of cancer in wild populations.
Article in Evolutionary applications, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers.
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Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed.
- Evolution of Senescence by Damage Accumulation That Accelerates With Age Throughout an Organism's Lifespan.Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- The depth of tumor hierarchy and its impact on hypertumor susceptibility.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Life history traits and cancer prevalence in birds.Evolution, medicine, and public health · 2024Article
- Life history and cancer in birds: clutch size predicts cancer.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2023Article
- Cell size, body size and Peto's paradox.BMC ecology and evolution · 2022Review
- The occurrence of cancer in vertebrates: a mini review.Journal of biological research (Thessalonike, Greece) · 2020Review
- Predation shapes the impact of cancer on population dynamics and the evolution of cancer resistance.Evolutionary applications · 2020Article
- Importance of metabolic rate to the relationship between the number of genes in a functional category and body size in Peto's paradox for cancer.Royal Society open science · 2016Article
- Can Peto's paradox be used as the null hypothesis to identify the role of evolution in natural resistance to cancer? A critical review.BMC cancer · 2015Review
- The multiple facets of Peto's paradox: a life-history model for the evolution of cancer suppression.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2015Article
- A metabolic perspective of Peto's paradox and cancer.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2015Review
- Towards cancer-aware life-history modelling.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2015Article
- Cancer susceptibility and reproductive trade-offs: a model of the evolution of cancer defences.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2015Article
- Decoding the Molecular and Mutational Ambiguities of Gastroenteropancreatic Neuroendocrine Neoplasm Pathobiology.Cellular and molecular gastroenterology and hepatology · 2015Review
- Cell size and cancer: a new solution to Peto's paradox?Evolutionary applications · 2015Article
- Epistemology of the origin of cancer: a new paradigm.BMC cancer · 2014Article
- Evolutionary foundations for cancer biology.Evolutionary applications · 2013Article
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5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
If the occurrence of cancer is the result of a random lottery among cells, then body mass, a surrogate for cells number, should predict cancer incidence. Despite some support in humans, this assertion does not hold over the range of different natural animal species where cancer incidence is known. Explaining the so-called 'Peto's paradox' is likely to increase our understanding of how cancer defense mechanisms are shaped by natural selection. Here, we study how body mass may affect the evolutionary dynamics of tumor suppressor gene (TSG) inactivation and oncogene activation in natural animal species. We show that the rate of TSG inactivation should evolve to lower values along a gradient of body mass in a nonlinear manner, having a threshold beyond which benefits to adaptive traits cannot overcome their costs. We also show that oncogenes may be frequently activated within populations of large organisms. We then propose experimental settings that can be employed to identify protection mechanisms against cancer. We finally highlight fundamental species traits that natural selection should favor against carcinogenesis. We conclude on the necessity of comparing genomes between populations of a single species or genomes between species to better understand how evolution has molded protective mechanisms against cancer development and associated mortality.
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