ArticleeLife2019
Somatic mutations in early metazoan genes disrupt regulatory links between unicellular and multicellular genes in cancer.
Article in eLife, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 33 papers, 3 of them syntheses 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
33 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 75 citations in OpenAlex.
- Inflamed Yet Immune-Evasive? A Transcriptomic Meta-Analysis Identifies Conserved Inflammatory, Developmental, and Neuronal Signatures Associated with Polyploid Giant Cancer Cells.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Pooled 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
- Pooled it
- Polyploid giant cancer cells (PGCC): short-term return to multicellularity.Biological research · 2025Article
- Shrinking to bird size with dinosaur-level cancer defences: Evolution of cancer suppression over macroevolutionary time.PLoS computational biology · 2025Article
- The mutational landscape and functional effects of noncoding ultraconserved elements in human cancers.Science advances · 2025Article
- Global chromatin reorganization and regulation of genes with specific evolutionary ages during differentiation and cancer.Nucleic acids research · 2025Article
- Global chromatin reorganization and regulation of genes with specific evolutionary ages during differentiation and cancer.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Origins of cancer: ain't it just mature cells misbehaving?The EMBO journal · 2024Review
- Disruption of metazoan gene regulatory networks in cancer alters the balance of co-expression between genes of unicellular and multicellular origins.Genome biology · 2024Article
- Air Pollution and Lung Cancer: Contributions of Extracellular Vesicles as Pathogenic Mechanisms and Clinical Utility.Current environmental health reports · 2023Review
- Cancer exploits a late premetazoan gene module conserved in the human genome.Genes & diseases · 2023Article
- The evolutionary cancer genome theory and its reasoning.Genetics in medicine open · 2023Review
- On the gene expression landscape of cancer.PloS one · 2023Article
- Evolutionary reversion in tumorigenesis.Frontiers in oncology · 2023Review
- Pan-cancer surveys indicate cell cycle-related roles of primate-specific genes in tumors and embryonic cerebrum.Genome biology · 2022Article
- The Transcriptome and Proteome Networks of Malignant Tumours Reveal Atavistic Attractors of Polyploidy-Related Asexual Reproduction.International journal of molecular sciences · 2022Article
- Cancer genes and cancer stem cells in tumorigenesis: Evolutionary deep homology and controversies.Genes & diseases · 2022Review
- Polyploidy and Myc Proto-Oncogenes Promote Stress Adaptation via Epigenetic Plasticity and Gene Regulatory Network Rewiring.International journal of molecular sciences · 2022Review
- Estimating the number of available states for normal and tumor tissues in gene expression space.Biophysical reports · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Extensive transcriptional alterations are observed in cancer, many of which activate core biological processes established in unicellular organisms or suppress differentiation pathways formed in metazoans. Through rigorous, integrative analysis of genomics data from a range of solid tumors, we show many transcriptional changes in tumors are tied to mutations disrupting regulatory interactions between unicellular and multicellular genes within human gene regulatory networks (GRNs). Recurrent point mutations were enriched in regulator genes linking unicellular and multicellular subnetworks, while copy-number alterations affected downstream target genes in distinctly unicellular and multicellular regions of the GRN. Our results depict drivers of tumourigenesis as genes that created key regulatory links during the evolution of early multicellular life, whose dysfunction creates widespread dysregulation of primitive elements of the GRN. Several genes we identified as important in this process were associated with drug response, demonstrating the potential clinical value of our approach.
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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.