ArticleNature methods2026
Inferring cancer type-specific patterns of metastatic spread using Metient.
Article in Nature methods, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- Article
- Multi-site sequencing supports dual-track evolution and identifies candidate metastasis-associated factors in gastric cancer ovarian metastasis.Clinical and translational medicine · 2026Article
- Phylogeography of Bone Metastasis: Clonal Evolution, Skeletal Niche Adaptation, and Clinical Implications.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Review
- The tree labeling polytope: A unified approach to ancestral reconstruction problems.Cell systems · 2026Article
- Bayesian inference of tissue-migration histories in metastatic cancer from cell-lineage tracing data.Cell genomics · 2026Article
- VINE: Variational inference for scalable Bayesian reconstruction of species and cell-lineage phylogenies.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
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Abstract
Cancers differ in how they spread. These routes of metastatic dissemination can be reconstructed from tumor sequencing data, but current reconstruction methods scale poorly or rely on assumptions that do not reflect known biology. Metient overcomes these limitations using gradient-based, multiobjective optimization to generate multiple hypotheses of metastatic spread that are rescored using independent genetic distance and organotropism data. Unlike current methods, Metient can be used with both clinical sequencing data and barcode-based lineage tracing in preclinical models. Here, applied to data from 167 patients and 479 tumors, Metient identifies distinct trends of metastatic dissemination in melanoma, high-risk neuroblastoma and non-small cell lung cancer. Its reconstructions usually match expert analyses but Metient often finds other plausible migration histories, ultimately positing more polyclonal and metastasis-to-metastasis seeding than previously reported. Metient's reconstructions thus challenge existing assumptions about metastatic dissemination and offer insights into cancer type-specific patterns of metastatic spread.
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