ArticlePLoS computational biology2021
Signatures of neutral evolution in exponentially growing tumors: A theoretical perspective.
Article in PLoS computational biology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed.
- A guide to understanding tumour evolution through the lens of population genetics.Nature reviews. Cancer · 2026Review
- Article
- Statistical and Evolutionary Analysis of Sequenced DNA from Breast Cancer FFPE Specimens.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- The balance between intrinsic and ecological fitness reveals hidden regimes in eco-evolutionary population dynamics.Research square · 2025Article
- The balance between intrinsic and ecological fitness reveals hidden regimes in eco-evolutionary population dynamics.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Single-cell mutational burden distributions in birth-death processes.PLoS computational biology · 2025Article
- Limit theorems for the site frequency spectrum of neutral mutations in an exponentially growing population.Stochastic processes and their applications · 2025Article
- Review
- Single-cell phylogenies reveal changes in the evolutionary rate within cancer and healthy tissues.Cell genomics · 2023Article
- Article
- Inferring ongoing cancer evolution from single tumour biopsies using synthetic supervised learning.PLoS computational biology · 2022Article
- Modes of Selection in Tumors as Reflected by Two Mathematical Models and Site Frequency Spectra.Frontiers in ecology and evolution · 2022Article
- Bridging Tumorigenesis and Therapy Resistance With a Non-Darwinian and Non-Lamarckian Mechanism of Adaptive Evolution.Frontiers in oncology · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Recent work of Sottoriva, Graham, and collaborators have led to the controversial claim that exponentially growing tumors have a site frequency spectrum that follows the 1/f law consistent with neutral evolution. This conclusion has been criticized based on data quality issues, statistical considerations, and simulation results. Here, we use rigorous mathematical arguments to investigate the site frequency spectrum in the two-type model of clonal evolution. If the fitnesses of the two types are λ0 < λ1, then the site frequency spectrum is c/fα where α = λ0/λ1. This is due to the advantageous mutations that produce the founders of the type 1 population. Mutations within the growing type 0 and type 1 populations follow the 1/f law. Our results show that, in contrast to published criticisms, neutral evolution in an exponentially growing tumor can be distinguished from the two-type model using the site frequency spectrum.
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