ArticleProgress in biophysics and molecular biology2021
Reverting to single-cell biology: The predictions of the atavism theory of cancer.
Article in Progress in biophysics and molecular biology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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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.
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 23 citations in OpenAlex.
- Systemic Alterations of Cancer Cells and Their Boost by Polyploidization: Unicellular Attractor (UCA) Model.International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Pooled 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
- The shared evolutionary capacities of plasmids and extrachromosomal DNA.Nature reviews. Genetics · 2026Review
- Evolutionary Transcriptomics of Cancer Development.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Article
- Epigenetic Regulation in Drosophila Tumor Models.Advances in experimental medicine and biology · 2025Review
- Carcinogenesis trajectories.Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2025Article
- On the evolutionary developmental biology of the cell.Trends in genetics : TIG · 2024Review
- Review
- Decoding Cancer Variants of Unknown Significance for Helicase-Nuclease-RPA Complexes Orchestrating DNA Repair During Transcription and Replication.Frontiers in molecular biosciences · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Cancer or cancer-like phenomena pervade multicellular life, implying deep evolutionary roots. Many of the hallmarks of cancer recapitulate unicellular modalities, suggesting that cancer initiation and progression represent a systematic reversion to simpler ancestral phenotypes in response to a stress or insult. This so-called atavism theory may be tested using phylostratigraphy, which can be used to assign ages to genes. Several research groups have confirmed that cancer cells tend to over-express evolutionary older genes, and rewire the architecture linking unicellular and multicellular gene networks. In addition, some of the elevated mutation rate - a well-known hallmark of cancer - is actually self-inflicted, driven by genes found to be homologs of the ancient SOS genes activated in stressed bacteria, and employed to evolve biological workarounds. These findings have obvious implications for therapy.
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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.