RevieweLife2021
Group phenotypic composition in cancer.
Review in eLife, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed, 33 citations in OpenAlex.
- When effective anticancer therapies are, in fact, destabilizing the tumor's Group Phenotypic Composition.NPJ precision oncology · 2026Review
- Spatially resolved transcriptomic and proteomic profiling reveals cell interaction programs that predict Barrett's esophagus progression.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Selection for Function in Complex Distributed Pathological Systems.Evolutionary applications · 2026Article
- Exploring tumorigenesis as a process of phenotypic state-space exploration and selective funneling.Evolution, medicine, and public health · 2026Article
- Multilevel Selection in the Margins: A Review of Its Representation in Undergraduate Biology Textbooks.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Review
- Article
- Leveraging selection for function in tumor evolution: System-level cancer therapies.Evolution, medicine, and public health · 2025Article
- Life history dynamics of evolving tumors: insights into task specialization, trade-offs, and tumor heterogeneity.Cancer cell international · 2024Review
- Modeling tumors as complex ecosystems.iScience · 2024Review
- A new perspective on tumor progression: Evolution via selection for function.Evolution, medicine, and public health · 2024Article
- Towards a new therapeutic approach based on selection for function in tumors: response to Dr. Mesut Tez.Evolution, medicine, and public health · 2024Article
- The paradox of cooperation among selfish cancer cells.Evolutionary applications · 2023Review
- Construction of a radiogenomic association map of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.BMC cancer · 2023Article
- Article
- Origin and evolution of animal multicellularity in the light of phylogenomics and cancer genetics.Medical oncology (Northwood, London, England) · 2022Article
- Review
- Invasion front dynamics of interactive populations in environments with barriers.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Bridging Tumorigenesis and Therapy Resistance With a Non-Darwinian and Non-Lamarckian Mechanism of Adaptive Evolution.Frontiers in oncology · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
13 authors at 5 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Although individual cancer cells are generally considered the Darwinian units of selection in malignant populations, they frequently act as members of groups where fitness of the group cannot be reduced to the average fitness of individual group members. A growing body of studies reveals limitations of reductionist approaches to explaining biological and clinical observations. For example, induction of angiogenesis, inhibition of the immune system, and niche engineering through environmental acidification and/or remodeling of extracellular matrix cannot be achieved by single tumor cells and require collective actions of groups of cells. Success or failure of such group activities depends on the phenotypic makeup of the individual group members. Conversely, these group activities affect the fitness of individual members of the group, ultimately affecting the composition of the group. This phenomenon, where phenotypic makeup of individual group members impacts the fitness of both members and groups, has been captured in the term 'group phenotypic composition' (GPC). We provide examples where considerations of GPC could help in understanding the evolution and clinical progression of cancers and argue that use of the GPC framework can facilitate new insights into cancer biology and assist with the development of new therapeutic strategies.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.