ReviewEvolutionary applications2023
The paradox of cooperation among selfish cancer cells.
Review in Evolutionary applications, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 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
14 citing papers in PubMed.
- Socially Minded Intelligence: How Individuals, Groups, and Artificial Intelligence Can Make Each Other Smarter (or Not).Personality and social psychology review : an official journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc · 2026Article
- Metastasis as a breakdown of the multicellular social contract.Cancer metastasis reviews · 2026Review
- Selection for Function in Complex Distributed Pathological Systems.Evolutionary applications · 2026Article
- Fraternal cooperation of hierarchical cancer parallels metazoan multicellularity and eusociality.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2026Review
- Cell encapsulated biomaterials for translational medicine.Bioactive materials · 2026Review
- Cancer, collapse, and the politics of somatic evolution.Evolution, medicine, and public health · 2026Review
- Changes in epistatic green-beard alleles induce domain shift in hypostatic rock-paper-scissors-like green-beard competition.NPJ systems biology and applications · 2025Article
- The depth of tumor hierarchy and its impact on hypertumor susceptibility.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Unveiling Another Dimension: Advanced Visualization of Cancer Invasion and Metastasis via Micro-CT Imaging.Cancers · 2025Article
- Multicellular cooperation and the hallmarks of cancer: A new foundation.Evolution, medicine, and public health · 2025Article
- Evolution of Bioelectric Membrane Potentials: Implications in Cancer Pathogenesis and Therapeutic Strategies.The Journal of membrane biology · 2024Review
- Leveraging Cancer Phenotypic Plasticity for Novel Treatment Strategies.Journal of clinical medicine · 2024Article
- A new perspective on tumor progression: Evolution via selection for function.Evolution, medicine, and public health · 2024Article
- The paradox of cooperation among selfish cancer cells.Evolutionary applications · 2023Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
11 authors.
Funding
Abstract
It is traditionally assumed that during cancer development, tumor cells abort their initially cooperative behavior (i.e., cheat) in favor of evolutionary strategies designed solely to enhance their own fitness (i.e., a "selfish" life style) at the expense of that of the multicellular organism. However, the growth and progress of solid tumors can also involve cooperation among these presumed selfish cells (which, by definition, should be noncooperative) and with stromal cells. The ultimate and proximate reasons behind this paradox are not fully understood. Here, in the light of current theories on the evolution of cooperation, we discuss the possible evolutionary mechanisms that could explain the apparent cooperative behaviors among selfish malignant cells. In addition to the most classical explanations for cooperation in cancer and in general (by-product mutualism, kin selection, direct reciprocity, indirect reciprocity, network reciprocity, group selection), we propose the idea that "greenbeard" effects are relevant to explaining some cooperative behaviors in cancer. Also, we discuss the possibility that malignant cooperative cells express or co-opt cooperative traits normally expressed by healthy cells. We provide examples where considerations of these processes could help understand tumorigenesis and metastasis and argue that this framework provides novel insights into cancer biology and potential strategies for cancer prevention and treatment.
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.