ReviewPhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2015
Cancer across the tree of life: cooperation and cheating in multicellularity.
Review in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 200 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
200 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Cellular Biogenetic Law and Its Distortion by Protein Interactions: A Possible Unified Framework for Cancer Biology and Regenerative Medicine.International journal of molecular sciences · 2022Pooled it
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- The identity crisis of cryptic lncRNAs: when non-coding RNAs translate into small peptides.The EMBO journal · 2026Review
- Metastasis as a breakdown of the multicellular social contract.Cancer metastasis reviews · 2026Review
- From the Selfish Gene to the "We": Cooperation Often Needs Suppressors.BioEssays : news and reviews in molecular, cellular and developmental biology · 2026Review
- Long-term competition experiments reveal limited adaptive evolution in human cell lines.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- The pathoanatomy of cancer: order in paradox.EBioMedicine · 2026Review
- Beyond Mice and Men: Alternative Vertebrate and Invertebrate Models in Cancer Biology.Annual review of cancer biology · 2026Article
- Evolution of the MUC1 gene in eutherian mammals as an adaptation responsible for the increasing incidence of cancer in humans.Biochimica et biophysica acta. Reviews on cancer · 2026Review
- Aging is not a disease: an evolutionary and comparative biological reappraisal.Biogerontology · 2026Review
- Two kinds of evolutionary individuals: the concept of common interest as an evolutionary foundation of dualism on biological individuality.History and philosophy of the life sciences · 2026Article
- Plant-derived gold nanoparticles functionalized with pheophorbide-a for potent photodynamic therapy against A549 lung cancer cells.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Cancer Across Domestic Animals: A Descriptive Review from the Veterinarian's Perspective.Veterinary sciences · 2026Review
- When cells rebel: a comparative genomics investigation into marsupial cancer susceptibility.Molecular biology and evolution · 2026Article
- Dark Skin Evolution in Early Humans: Revisiting the Skin Cancer Hypothesis Through Migration-Related Mismatch.Molecular biology and evolution · 2026Review
- How and why does aging occur? Updating evolutionary theory to meet a new era of data.Evolution, medicine, and public health · 2026Article
- Cancer, collapse, and the politics of somatic evolution.Evolution, medicine, and public health · 2026Review
- Coevolution of cooperative lifestyles and reduced cancer prevalence in mammals.Science advances · 2025Article
- Coevolution of cooperative lifestyles and reduced cancer prevalence in mammals.Science advances · 2025Article
140 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Multicellularity is characterized by cooperation among cells for the development, maintenance and reproduction of the multicellular organism. Cancer can be viewed as cheating within this cooperative multicellular system. Complex multicellularity, and the cooperation underlying it, has evolved independently multiple times. We review the existing literature on cancer and cancer-like phenomena across life, not only focusing on complex multicellularity but also reviewing cancer-like phenomena across the tree of life more broadly. We find that cancer is characterized by a breakdown of the central features of cooperation that characterize multicellularity, including cheating in proliferation inhibition, cell death, division of labour, resource allocation and extracellular environment maintenance (which we term the five foundations of multicellularity). Cheating on division of labour, exhibited by a lack of differentiation and disorganized cell masses, has been observed in all forms of multicellularity. This suggests that deregulation of differentiation is a fundamental and universal aspect of carcinogenesis that may be underappreciated in cancer biology. Understanding cancer as a breakdown of multicellular cooperation provides novel insights into cancer hallmarks and suggests a set of assays and biomarkers that can be applied across species and characterize the fundamental requirements for generating a cancer.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.